


Olicity Fanfic Countdown to Christmas

by mogirl97



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, holiday fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-09 09:44:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12885225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogirl97/pseuds/mogirl97
Summary: One-shots from my Olicity Fanfic Countdown to Christmas on tumblr





	1. Dec 1/ Dec 2

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends! I'm running a countdown to Christmas over on tumblr but I wanted to share the fics here too. Any one-shots that don't fit into one of my other AUs I'll be posting to this work :D

{PART 1 // DECEMBER 1 ST }

Oliver blew out a visible gust of air in the cold December air as he climbed the ladder propped against the front of the house. His mom had been asking him for two weeks now to put the Christmas lights up and  _ of course _ he waited until the coldest day of the year to finally fulfill her request. 

He was halfway through his task when he heard her. 

“Hey Oliver!” 

Turning his head, the whole world seemed to slow down as a smile cracked his frozen face and his heart sped up. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold and they matched her pink winter coat and beanie that her blonde hair was peeking out of. 

As he attempted to remember how to form words, he didn’t even notice himself losing his balance. 

* * *

_ “He fell from pretty high. Thankfully the snow absorbed some of the impact, but I still think he should see a doctor and get his head checked. There’s no way he doesn’t have a concussion.”  _

Opening his eyes, he blinked in confusion at the blurry people hovering over him, and his vision focused on an actual angel—

_ I’m dead. That’s the only possible explanation for this.  _

\--who was wearing a concerned expression on her face.

His head was pounding and his entire body felt numb from cold and he started to become aware that it was because he was not in the afterlife but rather—  

_ Why am I lying in a pile of snow?  _

He had not the faintest clue how he had gotten himself into this predicament.  

“Who are you?” he muttered, looking between her and the other, older-looking woman standing with her. 

“Do you not know who we are?” The older woman asked. 

“Uhh—“ He wracked his brain but it felt like it was just a hallway full of locked doors keeping him from accessing any relevant information. “No.” 

“I think temporary amnesia can be a symptom of a concussion?” The younger woman supplied. 

“Oliver, are you hurt anywhere else? Can you get up?”

He stared up at her blankly. 

“ _ Oliver?” _

He blinked at them in confusion. “Oh. Am I Oliver?”

The older woman sighed, “I hope you’re right about it just being temporary.”

Clumsily rising to his feet—wincing at the aching pains all over his body, he felt like the wind was knocked out of him all over again when the girl in the pink coat took a hold of his forearm and offered him an encouraging smile.  

“I’m going to call Robert. Will you help him get into the car Felicity?” 

“Of course, Mrs. Queen.” 

“Fe-li-ci-ty,” he repeated quietly. It was a pretty name, it suited her. He wished he could remember who she was. He wished he could remember anything at all. 

It was a small comfort to know he hadn’t broken anything. 

A wave of nausea hit him. 

_ Oh no, oh no, oh no— _

He emptied his stomach into the snow. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled at Felicity, who was wrinkling her nose in disgust. 

Her face softened and she rubbed his back, “It’s okay. C’mon.” 

_ “Please be my girlfriend, please be my girlfriend, please be my girlfriend,” _ he repeated to himself silently as she led him towards the garage.

Once he was seated in the car, she started to close the door and he mustered the courage to inquire, “So… Felicity… you’re my…?”

“Neighbor. Next-door neighbor to be exact.” 

Disappointment caused him to deflate a little against the seat. “Just neighbor?” 

An unreadable expression passed over her face before it was replaced with her friendly smile as she answered, “Well, we go to the same high school and we have chemistry and pre-calc together so-- wow, I guess you’re lucky that we already had midterms before you forgot everything.”

He frowned, “Yeah.” 

“I’m sorry, it must be really frustrating. But I’m sure you’ll have your memories back in no time.” 

The other woman, who he guessed was probably his mother, entered the garage then. 

“Your father is in a meeting so I left a message with his assistant.” She addressed Felicity, “Thank you for your help dear.”  

“You’re welcome. Just umm… keep me posted on what the doctor says.” 

“I will.” 

Felicity gave him one last little wave before shutting his door. Once she had left the garage, he closed his eyes with a sigh. 

_ Okay so… not my girlfriend.  _

Maybe when he got his memories back he’d remember that he didn’t like her like that and he wouldn’t be so disappointed over their relationship status. Or more accurately, _lack of_ _relationship_ status.  

* * *

“Well Mr. Queen, you definitely have a concussion,” the doctor reported. “And you’re probably going to have some nasty bruises, but you’re lucky you made that fall when there was snow on the ground. It could have been far worse.” 

His mother placed a hand on his shoulder, “And the memory loss…?”

“Is fairly common with a concussion. Give it some time. What he needs is observed rest—physical and mental. And we can prescribe something for the headache.” 

He raised his hand, “Uhh...how long is  _ “some time?”” _

“It’s different for everyone. But being at home around your family and familiar things should hopefully help.” 

Back at his house, his mom helped him inside since he was still a little unsteady on his feet. There were two people waiting for him in the living room and he had not the faintest clue who they were. 

_ Context clues Oliver, context clues.  _

Siblings maybe?

“Hey Oliver, I heard you took a little tumble,” the guy remarked. “What happened?” 

“He probably just forgot he was on a ladder because he was too busy making heart-eyes at Felicity,” the girl supplied, waggling her eyebrows. 

“Is that… is that a thing that I do?” he inquired curiously, a blush rising in his cheeks. 

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot we’re supposed to all pretend that your crush on her is actually the secret that you think it is.” 

“Wha—“

“Thea,” his mom chastised. “Your brother has a little bit of temporary amnesia from the concussion. Please don’t mess with him.” 

Sister. 

He asked the guy, “So are you my brother?” 

“Wow he really doesn’t—brother from another mother,” he answered with an amused grin. “Tommy.” 

Pressing his palms against his eyes, he muttered, “I think I need a nap.” 

His mom placed a hand at his back and guided him towards the stairs to show him where his room was. 

Inside his bedroom, he didn’t go straight for his bed and instead made a detour to his desk. It was relatively tidy, save for a few textbooks and random scraps of paper. On the wall above it was a bulletin board and his eyes caught on one of the pictures he had hanging there that looked like it was from a party. He wasn’t looking at the camera but rather—

“Huh. I guess I do make heart eyes at her,” he whispered to himself. 

His theory that he didn’t like Felicity was crumbling. What had his sister said earlier about him having some not-so-secret crush on her? 

His head felt so foggy, even the events since he had woken up in the snow were a little jumbled. Lying down on his bed, he didn’t even bother to kick off his shoes as he closed his eyes. The darkness provided a little relief from the throbbing pain and he quickly found himself falling asleep. 

“Oliver.” 

Someone was nudging his shoulder. 

“ASdfkn;alsddfndj,” he muttered incoherently.  

He felt himself being nudged again but he didn’t want to open his eyes. 

“Oliver?” 

From some corner of his mind he thought the voice sounded familiar and she seemed persistent, so he finally resigned himself to opening his eyes.

_ Worth the effort.  _

“Hey,” Felicity greeted him softly. He sincerely hoped there wasn’t a dopey grin on his face because he was figuring out that, even without his memories, his involuntary reactions to her were giving him a pretty good indication of how he felt about her. “So umm… I guess you’re probably wondering why I’m here. In your room.” She suddenly looked a little uncomfortable, her eyes darting around, and she laughed nervously. “I uhh—I didn’t snoop around or anything. I just got here and yeah…” Closing her eyes, she cleared her throat before continuing, “So I felt kind of bad because I felt like it was my fault that you fell because I caught you off guard and I didn’t apologize before so I came over and your mom said you were sleeping and I actually did some reading up on concussions while you were at the hospital and I saw that you should wake someone who’s had a really bad one up every four hours or so just to make sure they’re still responsive and I told your mom that and she sent me up here because she said you had been asleep for a while and so—” She took a deep breath. “That’s why I’m here.” 

“Uhhh…” 

His brain was operating way too slowly to keep up with all of that. He hadn’t really processed anything past “hey,” and the fact that she was wearing a sweater that made her eyes look really blue. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked. 

It took him a second to register that she had asked him a question and his response was a little awkwardly delayed. “A little better, I guess? I still don’t remember much of anything, but my headache isn’t as bad as it was earlier.” 

“Well hopefully you get your memories back before your family’s Christmas party on Friday.” 

“Holiday party,” he mumbled. 

“What?” 

“What?” 

She shook her head, “Never mind.” Her phone buzzed and she glanced at the screen. “I should umm… I should go. But I’m glad to see that you’re responsive.” 

“Thanks for checking.” 

Getting up to leave, he looked back over her shoulder before stepping out into the hallway, “Are you sure you don’t remember anything?”

“Literally nothing.” His brow furrowed in confusion over what had prompted her to ask, “At least I don’t think so.” 

> * * *
> 
> **Two Weeks Ago…**
> 
> “Oliver, will you please take an invitation for our Christmas party over to the Smoak’s house?” 
> 
> He looked up from his copy of the chemistry mid-term study guide—Felicity had written helpful reminders in the margins of it for everyone in their study group and her little doodles made him smile.  
> 
> “If we’re going to invite our Jewish neighbors, we should really call it a holiday party.” 
> 
> Embarrassment flashed across his mom’s face and she sighed. “You’re right. I hadn’t considered that and the invitations already say Christmas party. But would it be more rude not to invite them?”
> 
> Standing up from the table, he grabbed one of the invitations off of the counter, “I’ll take care of it.”
> 
> With a sharpie marker, he drew a line through “Christmas” and wrote “Holiday,” before shoving his feet into his boots to walk next door. 
> 
> His knock was answered by Felicity, who’s face brightened when she saw him, sending his stomach into a series of cartwheels. Ever since her family had moved into the house next door at the beginning of the summer, he had developed a massive crush on her. It had been his best kept secret for the past eight months, because he was too nervous to actually make a move, but he had promised himself that he was finally going to go for it at his family’s party. Which was why it was really important that it was a  _ holiday _ party so she felt welcome and would come and he wouldn’t have an excuse to bail on telling her how he felt.  
> 
> “Hey Oliver. What’s up?”
> 
> _ Act cool, act cool, act cool.  _
> 
> He extended the invitation to her and explained, “My family has this holiday party every year and invites the whole neighborhood.” 
> 
> “Oh, that’s so nice.” She glanced down at it and amusement lit up her face at his last-minute edit. 
> 
> “Okay so yeah—in the past it’s always been a Christmas party but you don’t—I mean, Hanukkah. So, holiday party?” 
> 
> She laughed and he mentally facepalmed. His threshold for being able to form coherent sentences around her had apparently been surpassed. 
> 
> “I appreciate you wanting to make us feel welcome. I’ll have to check with my mom… but I think we should be able to make it. Maybe we could bring some Sufganiyot to share?”
> 
> “Some what?”  
> 
> “Sufganiyot. They’re these amazing jelly donuts and  _ literally _ the only thing my mom somehow knows how to make. She makes them every year for Hanukkah. You have to try them.”
> 
> “I’d love to.” 
> 
> _ And then I will confess my love for you.  _
> 
> She bit her lip and it took everything in him to keep his eyes from zeroing in on her mouth. “Okay great… so umm—I should get back to studying for midterms, but I’ll check in with my mom when she gets home from work and we’ll RSVP. See you in class tomorrow?”  

* * *

{PART 2 // DECEMBER 2 nd } 

“If I like Felicity so much, and she doesn’t have a boyfriend, why haven’t I asked her out yet?” he asked Tommy on Friday afternoon. 

He was annoyed with himself for apparently being a massive idiot when it came to his neighbor and frustrated that his memories were still locked away. His parents, sister, and Tommy had been doing their best over the past two days to try and help him unlock them, but to no avail. He was starting to go crazy and the fact that he had been mostly confined to his room, unable to do anything that involved looking at a screen, reading, or thinking very hard, so that his brain could rest and heal, wasn’t helping. 

He couldn’t even look forward to the party that evening because he knew it was going to be awkward having to explain to people the whole time why he had no idea who they were. Just thinking about those interactions was making his headache worse. 

“That’s the million-dollar question dude. Everyone knows you like her, even though we play along with your acting like it isn’t obvious. I’m pretty sure she knows too and is confused why you won’t just man up and ask her on a date.” 

He laid his head down on the table and groaned. “I just want my memories back.”

He knew that he was Oliver Queen. A senior at Starling High School. He was the captain of the baseball team. His best friend was Tommy, at least according to him.  Everything he knew was because someone had told him, not because he could remember for himself. 

When the time for guests to start arriving rolled around, he lingered in his room for as long as possible, changing his tie at least five times before his mom called for him to come downstairs. 

“Look honey, I know this is going to be tiring for you and I don’t want you to overextend yourself, but could you please at least try to play host for an hour or so? I think it might be good for you to interact with some other people that you have memories associated with. You can take some of the pain meds the doctor prescribed for you if you think that will help.” 

“No, they just make me feel even more disoriented.” 

_ And I don’t want to increase my chances of saying something dumb to Felicity.  _

He caught sight of her then from across the room and felt his stomach swoop from what was not concussion related nausea.

She looked gorgeous in a red dress that matched her lipstick, her hair falling in soft waves around her face. 

He had to check to make sure that his jaw wasn’t on the floor. 

She was in the middle of a conversation with someone and he was relieved that she hadn’t seemed to notice him. Before she had the chance to, he headed in the opposite direction and got himself lost in a group of people who all wanted to ask him how his head was and see if he remembered them. 

He didn’t. 

It didn’t take long for him to feel like all the energy had been drained from his body and he knew he needed to take a little break. Taking a seat on the bottom of the staircase at the back of the house, he found some quiet that was a welcome relief for his headache. 

A few minutes later, Felicity joined him on the bottom step with a plate of what looked like doughnuts. 

“So umm… you don’t remember this, but you said you wanted to try one of my mom’s Sufganiyot and I wanted to make sure you got one while they were still a little warm.” 

“Oh. Thank you.” Grabbing one from the plate, he took a bite and stifled a moan at how delicious it was. “Wow. I can see why I wanted to try them.” 

Popping the rest of the doughnut in his mouth, he almost missed the way her eyes darted down to his mouth when he licked his lips. 

She reached up to wipe away some of the powdered sugar on his face and her expression suddenly changed. Before his brain could catch up to what was going on her lips were pressed against his and every cell in his body felt electrified as the doors in his mind that had been keeping his memories locked away seemed to fly open. Time seemed to slow down as a filmstrip of those memories started to play in his head. 

Watching a moving truck pulling up to the house next door. 

Felicity reading a book on her porch swing and looking up to wave at him as he walked out to the mailbox. 

Washing the car with Thea and getting sprayed by the hose when she caught him getting distracted by Felicity planting flowers in her front yard.  

Felicity leading the study group that he had only joined to spend more time with her, but ended up getting the extra reward of finally bringing home good grades. Her proud smile was burned into his mind.

Inviting her to this holiday party and hoping she’d come because he was finally going to—

To his dismay, the kissing abruptly stopped as Felicity pulled away, her cheeks flushed and her teeth sinking into her red-painted bottom lip. “I’m so sorry, that wasn’t fair of me. I shouldn’t’ve—“

Cradling her face with his hands, he searched her eyes,  _ actually seeing her _ for the first time since he fell from that ladder. He grinned. “Felicity. I remember.” 

“What?” she breathed out, the little crinkle between her eyebrows making an appearance. 

“I remember. I mean, not everything, some stuff is still a little foggy, but I remember a lot and you… I remember you. I remember that—“ He took a deep breath and she held his gaze expectantly. “I remember that I never should’ve waited so long to tell you that to me you’ve never been  _ just _ my neighbor.”

Understanding dawned on her face and an amused smile turned up the corners of her mouth. “So… I kissed you… and now your amnesia is cured?” 

“Well, I wouldn’t say it’s completely cured… I could probably use some more hel—“ 

She didn’t even let him finish his sentence before she was pulling him in by his tie to meet his mouth again. When her lips parted he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, his tongue exploring her mouth that tasted even better than the sugary sweet doughnuts they had been eating. 

He was pretty sure he could stay there on that step with her forever but the sounds of the party somehow managed to break through the haze surrounding them and she pulled back self-consciously. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this right now—“

He glanced at the clock on the wall and took note of the time. “My mom told me I only had to play host for an hour and then I could go rest…”

“Oh.” She stood up from the step. “Right. Physical exertion is not recommended when you’re recovering from a concussion and you’re probably really tired after all of this, so I should—“

Standing up as well, he caught her hand, “Felicity. That’s our excuse to ditch this party.  _ Together.” _

“Oh.”

He tugged on her hand gently and she gave him a shy smile before following him up the stairs. His balance was improving but he still clung tightly to the railing on one side and her hand on the other to avoid stumbling and taking her down with him. 

Arriving at his bedroom door, he led her inside. His head was pounding and he wasn’t sure how much of it was from his concussion and how much of was from the fact that he was still buzzing from her kisses. 

He sat down on the edge of his bed and patted the space next to him for her to sit with him. “I have a question.” 

“Ask away.” 

“When I asked you the other day—after I fell, why did you say you were just my neighbor? If I’m remembering correctly… we are friends, right?” 

“Well I’m kind of hoping that my lipstick all over your mouth means we’re more than friends now.” 

He let out a soft laugh, “Yeah.” 

Taking one of his hands in both of hers, she explained, “I told you that I was your neighbor because that was the only thing I was completely sure of and I didn’t want to say something that wasn’t going to be true when you got your memories back. I mean, I thought you liked me as more than a friend, but you never said anything so I had started to think that I was just misreading things. And then that had me questioning if we were even friends or you were just nice to me because I was the new girl next door and—“ She shrugged, “I don’t know, neighbor felt like the best answer.” 

He shook his head, wincing at the pain that shot through it, “I’ve had the biggest crush on since the moment you stepped out of that moving truck. I thought it was a secret, but apparently everyone knew. I should’ve made my feelings clear to you long before now. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay.” 

“No, it’s not. But I’m going to try to make up for it. Once I’ve recovered enough that I don’t get a massive headache from anything that isn’t lying in my bed with my eyes closed… will you go on a date with me?” 

Her eyes sparkled as she nodded enthusiastically, “Yes, of course.” A frown replaced her smile, “Wait, do you have a headache now?” 

“Sort of, but—“ 

“Lie down.” 

“But—“ 

“Oliver, the more you rest, the sooner you’ll recover and the sooner we can go on our date.” 

He sighed, “Good point.” 

Obliging her, he kicked off his shoes and scooted up the bed to lie down. To his surprise, she joined him, discarding her own shoes and curling up beside him. 

“I never said I was leaving,” she pointed out, loosening his tie and pressing a kiss to his forehead before resting her head on his chest.

He smiled as he wrapped an arm around her and closed his eyes. 

* * *

When Felicity woke up an hour later, she was completely disoriented. 

_ Where am I?  _

She wasn’t alone, she was—

_ Oh yeah. _

A grin spread across her face as she remembered how she had ended up in her current predicament before panic settled in and she wondered how much time had passed. 

Was the party over? Was her mom looking for her? 

Easing herself out of Oliver’s arms as carefully as possible to not disturb him, she checked the clock on his bedside table and was relieved to see that it was only 11pm. She tiptoed quietly over to his desk and found a piece of paper to scrawl a quick note for him that she left on the spot in his bed she had vacated. 

_ Oliver- _

_ Didn’t want my mom to worry. I’ll come over again tomorrow.  _

_ XOXO Felicity  _

As she descended the staircase, she became aware that it was very quiet in the house. This was going to be a slightly more awkward situation if she was the last guest to leave for the night. 

Walking past the kitchen, she startled when she heard her name. 

“Felicity?” 

She pivoted on her heels, a sheepish look on her face to accompany her smudged lipstick and messed up hair, as she faced the Queen matriarch. “Mrs. Queen… hi. Uhh—Oliver’s amnesia is gone.” 

“Well. It’s about time.”

Something about the look on her face made Felicity think she wasn’t just referring to the news about Oliver’s memories and she felt her cheeks turn the color of her dress. 

“Umm… my mom?” 

“She just left for the night.” 

“Okay… I should… get going then. So she doesn’t wonder what happened to me.” 

Amusement lifted the corners of Moira’s mouth. “I think she’ll figure it out.”

“I—“ Closing her mouth, she decided that silence was her best bet in this situation to avoid accidentally giving the woman too many details about her son’s kissing abilities. 

“Would you thank her for me for bringing those delicious doughnuts?” 

She nodded, “Yes Ma’am.” 

“Have a good evening Felicity.” 

It took everything in her to not run from the house in embarrassment when she turned towards the door. Back at her house, she found her mom waiting for her in the living room. 

“There you are… I lost track of you at the party and I thought maybe you had left early.”

“I—sort of did?” 

Her mom’s keen eyes took note of her appearance then and a knowing smile graced her face, “I see.” 

“Okay, it wasn’t that scandalous. We kissed like twice.” Dropping her gaze down at her toes, she muttered, “Two… really long kisses.” She looked back up at her mom, adding, “And that’s all the details you’re getting.” 

Her mom raised her hands defensively, “I didn’t even ask.” 

* * *

 

When Oliver woke up the next morning, his head felt clearer than it had in days and he smiled at the newest memories that lingered there. His smile shifted to a frown though when he realized he was alone in his bed. Noticing a piece of folded paper in the cold space where Felicity had been when he fell asleep, he reached for it and read her note to him. 

There was a soft knock at the door and he called for the person to come in, doing his best to conceal his disappointment at his guest being Thea. 

“Why are you still wearing your clothes from last night? I thought mom said your brain was working again…” 

“It is. My memories are all back. Ask me something.” 

She tapped her chin thoughtfully for a moment. “Summer of ’08, what happened to me on our family vacation?”   

“You broke your left arm,” he answered instantaneously. “We were at the lake and you slipped and fell on the dock. You had a pink cast that Tommy and I drew all over while you were sleeping and you were furious with us.” 

Thea raised an impressed eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest, “Wow, Felicity really must’ve worked some magic on you.”  

His eyes darted around in confusion, “What?” 

“Totally saw you two making out on the stairs last night.  _ Finally. _ I thought I was going to have to shove you under some mistletoe to put the rest of us out of our agony at watching you try to act like you didn’t have a crush on her.” She rested a hand on his shoulder, “I think the correct phrase is  _ Mazel Tov _ , big brother.” 

“Thanks,” he mumbled, the tips of his ears turning pink. 


	2. Dec 3/4/5

_"Your highness?”_

“Felicity!” Her mom nudged her shoulder. “Are you even paying attention?”

Looking up from her tablet she noticed the royal seamstress watching her expectantly.

“I’m sorry. What were you asking?”

The seamstress gestured to the two dresses she had on display. “I was wondering if you had made a decision on what dress you’d like to wear for the Winter Ball so that I can finish the alterations, Your Highness.”

“Oh. Ummm…”

“I like the red one,” her mom commented. “It’s a beautiful color on you….”

She was beyond caring. Her excitement for the annual ball had fled the country and abdicated the throne when she realized that this year the festivities were going to feel like an entire season of the Bachelorette crammed into one evening with potential suitors all trying to vie for her attention. With her ascension to the throne looming, the local eligible bachelors had started to turn into piranhas.

She shrugged, “Sure. Let’s go with the red.”

“Oooh does that mean I can wear the gold one?” Her best friend Iris swept into the room and flopped down onto her bed next to her.

“Knock yourself out.”

“Will there be time to alter it for me?” Iris asked the seamstress.

“Certainly, your grace,” she nodded, pulling out her measuring tape and gesturing for Iris to step forward.

“I know you’re not excited for this ball,” her mother began while the seamstress set to work pinning the gold gown around Iris’ figure. “But try to keep an open mind about the gentlemen who will be in attendance. No one is forcing you to marry any of them.”

“It certainly feels like it,” she muttered.

* * *

“What is the point of this trip again?” Oliver asked his father as he looked out at the snow capped mountains of Aldovia below them.

_Is that a castle?_

“I have some promising new business connections to meet with. So if the two of you could refrain from creating an international incident, I would appreciate it.”

“We’re just tagging along to go skiing, Mr. Queen,” Tommy assured him.

“Yeah dad. No trouble,” Oliver chimed in.

“Mhmm.” Robert looked at them doubtfully before returning to the file he had been reviewing.

He and Tommy often went along with his father on his business trips… and in more than one instance they had gotten in some trouble.

It wasn’t that they sought it out, it just seemed to be  _attracted_  to them.

* * *

Felicity pulled her scarf tighter to obscure more of her face as she walked down the snow covered road. The castle had started to feel a little claustrophobic with all of the preparations taking place for the ball the following evening and she had needed some fresh air. If her mom had known she was out without her security detail she would freak out, but she had needed a few minutes of real solitude to clear her head. The walk down to the heart of the town had been the perfect escape.

In the distance she spotted the ski slopes crawling with tourists. This time of year always brought in an abundance of wealthy families for their holiday getaways.

She kept her head down as she passed through a cluster of people before making it to the doorstep of her favorite bakery. They were closed down to focus on preparations for the ball, but when she tapped on the window and lowered her scarf to show her face, one of the women inside hurried to the door to unlock it for her.

“Your Highness,” she curtsied, despite Felicity’s repeated insistence that such formalities weren’t necessary. “You’re just in time to have a taste of a fresh batch of frosting.”

* * *

“You want to go check out the village?” Tommy asked.

Oliver looked up from his phone. “Just because there’s a castle, doesn’t mean they also have a village.”

“Village, town, whatever. I’m bored and we have to experience the local culture beyond the girls in the hot tub at the ski lodge.”

“They were American tourists.”

“Exactly.” Tommy leaned back and looked at the ceiling wistfully. “I want to taste  _Aldovia_.”

Oliver rolled his eyes but stood up from the couch to grab his coat. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“Do you think they have Uber here?”

“I think we’re walking. You think you can handle that after you fell on your ass so many times yesterday?”

“Hey!” Tommy shoved his shoulder. “It’s been awhile since I’ve skied. You could’ve shown some mercy on me and started off with some easier slopes.”

Oliver tossed Tommy his coat with a wink. “What would’ve been the fun in that?”

* * *

“Here’s some brownies to take home with you.” The baker handed her a small cake box. “No nuts.”

“Oooh thank you so much.” She gestured to the massive cake that they had started decorating during her visit. “I can’t wait to see this finished tomorrow night.” Replacing her scarf around her face she added in a mutter, “Might be the only thing I’m looking forward to.”

When she stepped out of the bakery she nearly barreled into two men and she quickly dipped her head and skirted around them, overhearing the conversation behind her.

“I’m sorry sirs. We’re closed today.”

“But she just—“

“For her—that was an exception. Now if you’ll excuse me, unless you want to help frost cakes for the ball, I need to be getting back to work.”

The door closed and she heard one of the guys remark,  _“The ball?”_ before she slipped down the alleyway that would take her to the road back to the castle.

* * *

“You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I’m thinking my dad is going to kill us if we attempt to crash a royal ball. Do you want to risk never being allowed to go on one of his business trips again?”

Tommy showed him a picture he had pulled up on his phone, “I’m thinking it’ll be worth it.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow, “Who’s that?”

“The princess—soon to be queen. Not altogether unattractive if you ask me.”

Oliver reached for the phone for a closer inspection and hummed in agreement.

“Young royals are notorious for scandals, right? And that’s kind of our forte.” Tommy plucked the phone back from him. He was quiet for a moment as he typed on his phone. “Although… the princess in particular doesn’t seem too wild. Her greatest hit was hacking the national bank when she was fourteen to prove a point about their weak security measures.” He shrugged, “Oh well. We can still have some fun.”

“ _If_  we even get in. That’s a big if.”

* * *

Felicity was dodging a Duke with a reputation for being a serial womanizer and frantically searching for Iris when her mom approached her.

“Honey.” She straightened her crown for her before resting her hands on her shoulders. “Try not to look so much like a deer in headlights.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Have you seen Iris?”

An amused expression flashed on her mom’s face. “I believe you’ll find her in the northwest corridor.”

Felicity rolled her eyes and started to walk away, muttering, “I told her she wasn’t allowed to abandon me…”

Making a beeline for the quiet corridor, she found Iris, and when she cleared her throat her friend’s companion jumped back, his face reddening.

“Your majesty, I—“

“Barry.” She cut him off with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Technically it’s Your Highness, but you also know that you don’t have to be so formal with me. I am however going to have to make a decree that you refrain from making out with my wingwoman until later.”

Iris rolled up on her toes to press a kiss to Barry’s flushed cheek. “Sorry babe, duty calls. I’ll find you later.”

An unwelcome pang of jealousy hit her squarely in the chest at the fond look they exchanged and she quickly turned away. Her life could be lonely sometimes… and just because she didn’t want to be bound to some young nobleman seeking only to elevate his status, didn’t mean she was as cold hearted as someone had described her on a gossip blog the other week. She wanted romance, not a political arrangement, but lately she wasn’t sure that was in the cards for her.

Iris fell into step with her as they walked down the corridor, “Am I still considered your wingwoman if I’m supposed to be keeping guys away from you?”

“You’re allowed to be more abrasive than I am. I have to be gracious and regal even when I want to be anything but.” Felicity shot her a look, “You couldn’t have lasted even an hour before sneaking off?”

“Sorry.” Iris pouted. “He just looks so handsome tonight.”

Felicity rolled her eyes and reached for her arm to stop her so she could fix her hair and the bodice of her dress to make her look a little less lovingly disheveled before they entered the ballroom.

The Duke she had been trying to avoid earlier was lurking and started to approach them when he noticed her return.

Iris held up a hand to keep him at bay. “You’re literally never going to have a shot with her and your hair is not as great as you think it is, okay? Bye.”

* * *

“I’ll give you $200 if you ask her to dance with you.”

“I don’t need $200.”

“I know. But I also know the money doesn’t matter—you just can’t back down from a challenge.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You don’t want to give it a shot with royalty? I thought you wanted to get a taste of Aldovia?”

“Oh I’ll get a taste.” Tommy tilted his head to the side, “Those fair ladies have been checking us out since we arrived, but you’ve been too distracted to notice.”

The tips of his ears turned pink at the hint that his stolen glances at the Princess of Aldovia had not been as subtle as he thought. The picture Tommy had shown him earlier had not done her justice. She was…  _resplendent._  It was difficult to keep his gaze from seeking her out since the moment he first saw her.

“I—“

“No worries. I can handle both of them.” Tommy gave him a little nudge in the direction of where Her Highness was standing. “Now go.”

Suddenly he felt uncharacteristically flustered. He hadn’t earned the reputation he had in Starling by shying away from turning on his charm, but he had also never felt like anyone was out of his league.

A Queen he may be, a Princess was definitely  _way_  out of his league.

But Tommy was right, he couldn’t back down from a challenge. And if they had managed to charm their way into the castle, surely he could handle this.

* * *

“Care for a dance Your Highness?”

Felicity’s eyes widened at being caught moments before shoving a giant bite of cake in her mouth. Lowering her fork, she slid her eyes to the side to see who had approached her.

It was an unfamiliar face—

_But an admittedly handsome one._

—and one with a thinly veiled amused expression directed more than likely at her behavior.

Her eyes quickly darted around for Iris, who she had momentarily stepped away from to enjoy her cake in solitude, before resigning herself to having to deal with this situation on her own.

“Not particularly,” she answered with as much royal politeness she could muster.

He shrugged, “Well, it was worth a shot.”

Her brow furrowed at his quick dismissal of her as he started to walk away and she piped up, “Wait.”

When he pivoted back around to her she could tell by the look on his face that he had set a trap and she had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

And yet…

She sighed and extended her hand, “One.”

She hated the way she liked how her small hand fit in his large one.

Hated the way her breath caught when he placed his other hand on the small of her back, the warmth of it practically burning the fabric of her dress away.

Hated the way the corners of his mouth turned up into a self satisfied smile at having such an effect on her.

Hated herself for her moment of weakness that caused her to drawn in by the handsome stranger.

But she held his gaze nonetheless as they swept across the crowded dance floor.

He danced with aristocratic skill, but clearly wasn’t one of the local nobility she had been brushing shoulders with since childhood.

Something held her back from asking his name, ascertaining his identity. Maybe it was because too many details would break the spell she was under and she rather liked being entranced by his soft, blue eyes that weren’t demanding anything from her.

One song blended into another without her noticing and she allowed him to ever so slightly pull her in closer to himself instead of fleeing as she had originally planned.

The thought that she would like to erase the last few inches between them in favor of being completely pressed against him briefly flitted through her mind, bringing a flush to her cheeks that she hoped could be explained away by the warmth of the room.

“You’re very beautiful.”

As a Princess, she had grown quite used to flattery… most of it insincere, but his whispered words had her heart skipping faster in her chest. The people around them had seemed to fade to a blur in her peripheral vision and she felt her chin tipping up in silent invitation.

It was when his lips were mere millimeters from hers, his warm breath tickling her face, that the spell was broken.

He pulled away suddenly, am unreadable expression on his face as he loosed his hold on her.

“I—“ Shaking his head he turned and disappeared into the crowd without explanation, leaving her in a haze of confusion and feeling as though all the warmth in the room had been swept away with him.

* * *

“We need to go.” He grabbed Tommy’s arm and pulled him away from the two women he was flirting with. “Right now.”

“Wha—not cool dude. I didn’t even get a chance to get their numbers. Or addresses? Do you think they have phones in this place? Maybe they use messenger pigeons—“

“Obviously they have phones, this is not the Middle Ages,” he cut him off gruffly.

“I was joking. Because it’s a monarchy and the castle and— Man, what has got you so riled up?”

“I—I don’t want to talk about it. Now c’mon.” He continued to practically drag his friend towards the nearest exit.

“Something go wrong with Cinderella? You should know that I overheard two very important looking guys who were  _furious_  that you managed to get her to dance with you. Well done. Why aren’t we sticking around for the you to get a tour of the royal bedchamber?”

He kept his mouth shut until they had made it out of the castle.

“I can’t want her.” He pressed his palms against his face. The cold air was a welcome relief from the heat that had been coursing through his body even as he belatedly realized that in their rush they had forgotten to pick up their coats. No going back for them now. “I don’t even know her.”

“That hasn’t stopped you before—“

“But I want to know her,” he cut him off. “There’s just something about her—“ Something captivating. Something that made him want to run back into that castle, even though he knew he couldn’t, especially not after the way he had left things. He exhaled, his breath forming a white cloud. “It doesn’t matter. She’s literally a Princess in a country I’ll probably never step foot in again and I just— I’m just… you owe me $200.”

* * *

She had long lost sight of him but she hadn’t been able to move from the spot he had left her.

“Felicity?”

At the sound of her name, she turned towards Iris.

“Where’d Prince Charming go?”

“Huh?”

Iris gently tugged her away from the dance floor and the couples who were awkwardly trying to dodge her. “I came looking for you and lo and behold, you’re floating across the dance floor with quite possibly the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen— _please don’t tell Barry I said that_ —and appearing to be enjoying the experience very much. So… who is he? And where’d he go?”

Her voice was flat when she answered both her friend’s inquiries with, “I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. We had a moment. It was nice, but it’s over. Whatever.”

“Is that really how you feel?”

“Iris, I don’t even know him. We just danced.”

“And it was super romantic looking. If your mom had caught sight of that, she would have abandoned the ball to start the wedding planning.”

“I don’t know him,” she reiterated. And he clearly wasn’t interested in knowing her. An unfortunate departure from the normal male behavior towards her. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a Duke inching his way closer after noticing she was no longer occupied and she restrained an eye roll. “So let’s just… forget about it.”

* * *

He tried not to think about her. Tried to think about anything else as he stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep.

Tommy was  _occupied_  in a room down the hall, after getting over his momentary disappointment over having to abandon the Ladies-with-a-capital-L at the ball, and he was left alone with just the quiet and his mind replaying the events of the night on loop.

He had been watching her all evening, but as she reacted to being caught shoveling cake into her mouth, he had felt like he saw a glimpse of her that wasn’t carefully constructed for the sake of the crown perched on her head.

_Her head of soft golden curls that he had wanted to unpin and watch fall over her freshly kissed bare shoulders._

It was in that moment that she had endeared herself to him and he became doubly determined to get her to agree to dance with him. He had thought that “love at first sight” was a bunch of crap reserved for Disney Princess movies, but apparently it was the effect that real life Princesses had too.

As they moved across the room to the music, he had uttered a silent apology to his mother for all the times he complained about her enforced dancing lessons as they were now serving him well. It had felt so good, so  _strangely right_ to hold the Princess in his arms. And it had been an effort to maintain proprietary by keeping her at the respectful distance the situation called for.

When her chin had tilted up and the look in her eyes had changed to offer him silent permission, he had wanted so badly to kiss her. Taste her mouth painted red to match her dress.

But he knew if he had, it would have been a mistake. He couldn’t kiss her knowing he would be stepping on a plane the next morning and she would be nothing but a memory.

* * *

“Okay so it’s not just  _whatever_ ,” she finally admitted later that night, pushing open the door to Iris’s bedroom and hastily turning around at what she encountered inside. “Ack. So so so so sorry guys. I really should’ve knocked. I’m going to go… bleach my eyeballs.”

“Find your Prince Charming, Felicity.” Iris called at her retreating back. “Use the internet or something. You can find anything on the internet…”

_Including a how-to for unseeing your friend and her boyfriend undressing each other, perchance?_

Making it back to her room, she opened up her laptop and began a search of everyone on the guest list for the evening whose name she didn’t recognize.

An hour later, she came up empty.

Well… it wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility that he had smooth talked his way in without an invitation, considering the effect he had had on her. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time they had crashers at a royal gala.

That being the case though, this was going to require a little more detective work. Throwing her robe on over her pajamas, she walked through the quiet castle halls down to the entrance that had been opened up for the guests to see if any of the guards presently on duty had been involved with admission.

Her attention was drawn by the sound of a member of the castle staff sweeping up the coat closet, and she peeked her head inside.

“Your Highness,” she startled. “What can I do for you?”

Her eyes caught on a pair of coats that had been left behind.

Her mystery man had left in quite a rush…

“Nothing,” she answered the woman, stepping forward to inspect the coats.

They were expensive. Either of them she approximated were the right size.

She inspected the pockets.

_Bingo._

As she sat on her laptop and hacked into the server of the nearby lodge to hopefully connect a receipt for a ski pass to a credit card to a person—the person she was looking for—she tried not to feel guilty. She had promised her mom after the bank incident that she was not going to invade her subjects’ privacy again just because she could.

_I’m only doing it for love!_

Okay, that was ridiculous and she knew it.

But maybe she was doing it for the chance to possibly fall in love. With someone who had only asked for a dance. Someone who looked at her in a way that made her feel like a person and not just a route to a throne.

* * *

“You boys ready to go?” Oliver’s father asked them when they gathered in the lobby of the lodge the next morning.

“Yeah,” Oliver answered half-heartedly, stifling a yawn that was thanks to the zero hours of sleep he had gotten.

Tommy patted him on the back, “C’mon man, you’ll forget all about her once we get home.”

Robert arched an eyebrow, “Forget about who?”

“No—“

_“Is that the Princess?”_

His head whipped around so fast he thought he might’ve given himself whiplash.

Snowflakes were melting in her hair and on the shoulders of her coat and she was sporting dark circles under her eyes that matched his. Her cheeks were pink from the cold and—and her eyes lit up when they met his. Like she had been looking for him.

It took a second for it to register that she was really standing there, less than fifty yards away, before he was able to move towards her.

He wasn’t even sure how he crossed the distance to end up standing in front of her so quickly, his hands caressing her face as he looked down at her in disbelief.

“I couldn’t just let you leave,” she whispered.  _“Oliver.”_

“How did you—?”

Her expression turned sheepish, “Uhh—“

“Nevermind, I don’t care.” Dipping his head, he met her for the kiss he had denied them last night, not caring about the audience they had attracted. Her fingers came to latch onto the front of his shirt as he tugged on her full bottom lip. When they broke apart, both a little breathless, their faces bore matching smiles.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

She bit her lip. “Umm…”

His smile turned to a frown and he dropped his hands from her face as he remembered, “I’m leaving today.”

“Don’t.” Her eyes searched his. “I mean… I can’t make you stay. I won’t have you locked in the dungeon or anything but—“

“A dungeon,” Tommy muttered from behind them.

“But maybe—if you wanted—you could just stay for a few more days and we could… get to know each other?” she suggested shyly. “See if there could be something more here than just one really memorable dance and kiss? I can arrange a room for you at the castle and a flight home on one of the royal aircraft…”

“I’d like that.”

“Really?”

He nodded and took her hands in his. “Really.”

“Will someone please explain to me what’s going on?” His father spoke up from where he was watching the scene play out.

“To be fair Mr. Queen, let me just preface by saying that I don’t think that Oliver stealing the heart of the Princess with his smooth dance moves and dreamy blue eyes is technically an  _international incident_ ,” Tommy supplied just loud enough for them to overhear, turning Felicity’s face into a mix of confusion and amusement. “But if you’re going to classify it as such… I was not involved at all.”

* * *

“You know, I totally understand why you were annoyed with me when I asked to drag you away from this cake,” Oliver remarked, taking another bite, and she shook her head in amusement.

They were sitting in the castle kitchen eating defrosted leftover cake from the ball and swapping stories about holiday traditions at their homes and she was so, so happy she hadn’t let him go.

She almost had. Even after she had found out his identity and where he was staying. Because along with that information came a slew of articles about billionaire playboy, Oliver Queen, and she wasn’t sure if that was a guy she wanted to know. She had wondered if it would be better to just hold onto the fairytale-like memory of the Oliver who had danced with her at the ball.

But then she remembered all the gossip articles that had been written about her, the little twists on the truth. She didn’t want people to judge her based on a persona the media created for her, so it wouldn’t be fair of her to dismiss Oliver based on his.

And in the time that he had stayed with her so far—a few days had turned into almost two weeks—he had been open and honest about the parts that were true, the parts he didn’t like about himself, while also letting her see the person that the media failed to capture.

A person that understood, even if on a smaller scale, what it was like to have pressure and expectations put on you just because of your last name. A person that she could definitely see herself falling in love with. A person that could make her future role as Queen less lonely.

“Just wait until you taste all of the sweet treats they’ll deliver to the castle for the first night of Hanukkah tomorrow.”

His face fell and she remembered that he was supposed to be flying home tomorrow morning to spend the holidays with his family. She remembered that Aldovia was not his home, and it was unfair to want him to give up his old life for her. She had gotten so caught up in the magic of their first meeting… reality felt like a snowball to the face.

Looking down at their hands that were woven together in her lap, she admitted, “I’m not ready to say goodbye.”

“Hey,” he returned softly. “Look at me.” When she obliged, he continued, “It’s not goodbye. It’s not. It would only be a goodbye if we had realized after getting to know each other better that we were only meant to have one dance.”

“I think it was technically two,” she interjected.

“Ok two. But if spending this time here with you has made me certain of anything, it’s that I want to have more nights to dance with you. I really, really like you Felicity.”

His words brought her a glimmer of hope that she clung to.     

She brought their intertwined hands up to her mouth to press a kiss to his knuckles, “I really, really like you too.”

“And I like being here with you. So… I know we—well, mostly I—have a lot of stuff to figure out if we want to make this work, but I’ll talk to my parents so that after the holidays, I can come back to you. And we can call each other every day while I’m in the States.

“Oh, but I don’t have a phone. We use messenger pigeons here. Did I not tell you that?”

He shot her a look. “You’re not being serious with me right now.”

She couldn’t keep herself from grinning at his exasperation and she pressed a smiley kiss to his cheek, “Obviously.” Biting her lip, she asked, “You really want to come back here?”

* * *

“You want to do what?” his mother asked as the gathered around the tree Christmas morning. Thea had fallen asleep in a pile of wrapping paper with a content smile on her face and she stirred at the raised voice. In hindsight, there probably had been a better time to spring this on her, but there was no going back now.

“I want to go back to Aldovia, to be with the Princess,” he repeated.

“Be with the—you’re telling me that you want to stay there?”

“Yes.”

“Oliver, forgive me for being concerned… but you don’t exactly have a history of lasting longer than a week in romantic relationships. I don’t think it’s wise to have a fling with a future ruler of a foreign country. That’s a little outside of the territory your father and I are able to clean up messes for you.”

“Moira,” his father reached for her hand.

She ignored him and kept talking, “I know you’ve been trying to avoid taking on responsibilities but this is just a little dramatic.”

A lightbulb went off in his head.

“Dad? How’d your business meetings go while we were in Aldovia?”

The abrupt change of topic cause confusion to furrow his father’s brown but he answered, “Excellently. The country is making huge infrastructure investments to modernize. We’ll have lucrative arrangements there for years.”

“So it would make sense to have someone representing the company living there?”

Understanding dawned on his father’s face, “Yes. That would be wise. Did you have someone in mind who could take on those responsibilities?”

“You’re actually serious about this?” his mother inquired, realizing where this was going.

“Mom… Felicity, the Princess. She’s incredible.” The time that he had spent with her at the castle had only reinforced that opinion. “She’s smart and funny and beautiful and she’s going to make an amazing Queen. As in, _Queen of Aldovia_ , Queen. I’ve never met someone that I felt such an instant connection with and I know it seems crazy, but—“

“It’s not,” his father interrupted her. “I saw the look on your face when she showed up at the lodge. If you want to be with her in Aldovia, the position at the company would be yours.”

His mother looked down at her hands, but not before he caught the tears springing up in her eyes.

“Mom?”

“It’s so far away,” she whispered.

He moved to sit beside her and draped his arm across her shoulder. “I know. But don’t forget that we have multiple private planes and you could visit whenever you wanted. I think you would feel quite at home in a castle.”

“Mmm,” she hummed in agreement.

“Please mom, let me prove to you I’m ready for more than a fling. I want to try and make this work with her. And if it doesn’t, I’ll have at least gotten some good experience working for the company.”

She was quiet for a few moments before lifting her gaze to meet his. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“My beautiful boy, if this is what you truly want, then I’m not going to keep you from returning to her.”

A smile spread across his face, “Thank you Mom, Dad.” He checked the time, “I’m uhh—going to give her a call before it gets too late over there, if that’s okay?”

“Go, go,” she dismissed him.

Up in his room, he requested to FaceTime with her and she answered almost immediately.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” He could barely contain his grin at the thought of seeing her again soon—and not through a screen. “I have some good news…”

* * *

**One Year Later…**

Felicity watched as Oliver meticulously frosted a batch of sugar cookies to give his sister when his family arrived that afternoon for the Winter Ball. The ladies at the bakery had fallen in love with him from the first day she brought him there after he moved to Aldovia. He had a knack for helping with the cakes and pies and cookies and they both enjoyed the momentary escape from the castle—even though she was truly enjoying her role as Queen.

Today as an especially busy day at the castle, with the ball preparations in full swing, and her mother had been more than happy to oversee things so that she and Oliver could have a quiet morning together.

Her mother adored Oliver.

Oliver glanced up and when he noticed her watching him, he shot her a warm smile that felt like a hug.

_She_  adored Oliver.

Things had changed so much in a year. She never in a million years would’ve expected that the Winter Ball she had been dreading last December would end up as the beginning of her own fairytale love story. With a guy who cared far more about her heart than the crown on her head.

Checking the time, she realized they needed to leave soon to meet the Queen family at the private airstrip.

She walked up behind Oliver and looped her arms around his waist, “I hate to disrupt the master pastry chef at work, but we should get going.”

He placed the last of the batch of cookies he had been working on in the pastry box. “There’s just one more thing I need to do before we go.”

“Okay.”

She stepped away from him and went to retrieve her coat from the stand by the door. Turning back around, her eyes widened in surprise at the sight of him down on one knee.

“What are you—“

“Felicity Megan Smoak.  _Your Majesty_.”

She grinned at the teasing glint in his eyes, even as happy tears started to spring to hers.

“When I first landed in this country, that I didn’t even know existed prior to visiting, I thought true love was a myth reserved for fairytales. And then I met you. In a castle, at a ball… so you know, maybe true love is for fairytales and I just got lucky enough to find myself a part of one. I don’t know. But I do know two things for certain. One, I love you so much. And two, I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life anywhere but by your side. So…”

He flipped open the little velvet box to display a blindingly bright diamond.

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes.” She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, yes, yes.”

Extending her hand to him, she let him slip the ring onto her finger before grabbing his hands to help haul him up off of the floor so she could pull him in for a hug and pepper his face with kisses.

The ladies abandoned their cakes to burst into applause and she suddenly remembered they had an audience.

“Congratulations Your Majesty,” they all chimed in together.

Oliver tucked her into his side, so she could turn to address them, “Thank you.” She glanced up at him. “I guess we’ll be putting in an order for a wedding cake soon.”

“It would be our honor,” the owner responded with a curtsy.

They bid everyone at the bakery goodbye to make the walk back to the castle as snow started to fall gently around them. The size of her ring made it difficult for her to fit into her gloves so she gave up in favor of stuffing her hand in Oliver’s coat pocket and intertwining her fingers with his.

“So I guess this means you’re not going to run off again after two dances tonight, right?” she asked cheekily, calling back to their first encounter at last year’s Winter Ball.

“Only if you want to run off with me. Eat some cake.” He squeezed her hand, “Make out in the corridor.”

“Mmm, I’ll keep those options in mind. _Fiancé_.”

“Does this mean I’m going to get a title now?”

“Ah so you are one of the crown chasers after all,” she teased, nudging his side.

“Never.” He paused their walk and extracted their hands to press a kiss to her ring before giving her a soft smile. “All I want is you.”

**SPOILER ALERT:**  They lived  _happily ever after_  ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ps: yes I totally stole the country name from that Netflix movie, The Christmas Prince, lol


	3. Dec 6

When Felicity walked into her classroom on Tuesday morning there was a white cake box on her desk. Stepping closer she noticed a note taped to the top.

_Felicity-_  
Happy Hanukkah!  
XO

It was unsigned. Lifting the lid of the box, the sweet aroma of freshly made Sufganiyot, jelly doughnuts, hit her nose and she licked her lips in anticipation. The thought that someone was trying to poison her briefly flitted through her mind, but, in a rush that morning she hadn’t had time to eat breakfast, and her growling stomach trumped her paranoia.

She took a bite and it instantly took her back to her childhood and the little Jewish bakery her and her mom would pay a visit to every year for the Hanukkah treats they wouldn’t have been able to make without running the risk of burning down their tiny apartment kitchen.

She hadn’t been able to find any Sufganiyot as good as those in Star City, so she strongly suspected that these almost exact replicas were homemade.

Who would take the time to do that for her? The anonymity of the gesture bugged her. Mysteries were meant to be solved….but this one would have to wait, because her students began to trickle into her classroom just as she popped the last bite of warm, sugary doughnut into her mouth.

At lunch, she revisited her quandary. Licking powdered sugar off her fingers from the doughnut she had eaten in place of the meal she had forgotten in her fridge at home (the timing of this surprise had really been impeccable), she studied the handwriting on the note to see if she recognized it from any of her coworkers. She assumed it had to be from one of her fellow teachers, or another member of the school’s staff, if they had access to her classroom that morning. But with most inter-school communication occurring via technology, she knew her efforts were futile.

A part of her told her she should just let it go. Accept that someone just wanted to do something nice for her, no strings attached.

But the part of her that was incessantly curious just could not let it go. And the “XO”… she felt like she was one of her fourth graders with a secret admirer.

“Felicity?”

Turning her head, she saw Barry standing in her doorway.

_Hmmm…. definitely a possibility._

They had hit it off pretty quickly when he took over one of the other fourth grade classrooms after Mrs. Caldwell retired. He was cute, a little nerdy, but that was honestly a pro not a con in her book, and it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to peg him as her anonymous Sufganiyot maker.

A shy smile spread across her face, “Hi Barry.”

His eyes flickered to the box on her desk and her little menorah before returning her smile, “Hey Felicity. You have plans for tonight?”

“I don’t know… do I?” His brow furrowed in confusion and she backtracked quickly, shaking her head, “I meant, ‘I don’t know, what about you?’”

“My girlfriend is going to come over and watch a Hallmark movie while I grade math tests.”

_Girlfriend._

“Girlfriend?”

“Yeah, Iris. You know, you two would probably get along. I’ll have to introduce you to her sometime.”

_Well then, that’s one potential suspect that can be eliminated._

“I’d like that.”

“Cool. But what about you? You don’t have any plans for celebrating Hanukkah?”

She shrugged, “A lot of my traditions involve my mom and she still lives in Vegas so… I’ll just be lighting my menorah and probably eating the rest of these Sufganiyot. Which I’ll definitely regret when I’m on the elliptical tomorrow.”

The bell rang then, signaling the end of recess and she said goodbye to Barry as he ducked out to return to his classroom.

* * *

The next morning Felicity was greeted by a bouquet of snow white roses on her desk.

She couldn’t remember the last time someone bought her flowers… probably because it was never, and the gesture brought a smile to her face. Her desire to find out who was leaving these gifts for her intensified.

While she was placing the roses in a mason jar she found in one of her cabinets, she was paid a visit by Caitlin, the other fourth grade teacher, beside her and Barry.

“Hey Felicity, do you have any extra copies of—oh, those are pretty.”

“Right?” She sat the impromptu vase on the corner of her desk. “Someone left them on my desk for me this morning… and Sufganiyot, these delicious jelly doughnuts, for me yesterday, but I don’t know who.”

Caitlin nudged her side teasingly, “Sounds like you have a secret admirer.”

“Or a stalker. I had one of those in college, you know. Although, in comparison, this seems more sweet and thoughtful than creepy.” She showed Caitlin the note from yesterday, “Do you recognize this handwriting?”

“Nope. But Happy Hanukkah— I didn’t realize that it was this week.”

“Thanks… now what was it you were saying you needed…”

Once Caitlin had left with the extra copies of the book she had come for, Felicity spent the few minutes she had before her students were due to arrive to deliberate the mystery of who was leaving her gifts, to no avail.

* * *

  
After receiving little gifts on her desk for the first four days of Hanukkah with no clue as to who they were from, Felicity finally decided to step up her investigation.

Hacking into the school’s security cameras Friday night, she uttered a silent apology to the administration, before locating the footage from her classroom, Tuesday morning.

As the video played, she felt her jaw slowly falling.

No— _freaking_ —way.

* * *

 

> **{Two Months Ago}**
> 
> She really needed to get her crap together in the mornings.
> 
> Running late again, she was on a mission to get to her classroom and didn’t notice that her path was moments from crossing with—
> 
> “Ack!”
> 
> She was prevented from finding herself on the floor by a strong hand reaching for her arm to steady her. Apologies started to tumble out of both of their mouths until she looked up to ascertain the identity of who she had collided with and she was rendered speechless. It was someone she had most definitely never seen before. She would remember that face. Not to mention, the school wasn’t exactly huge, she knew all of the other teachers and almost all of the staff so—
> 
> “Hi, I’m Oliver Queen,” Mr. Handsome introduced himself. “This is my first day and uhh— this was not exactly the first impression I was hoping to make on one of my new coworkers. Are you okay?”
> 
> “Yeah,” came out sounding a little like a sigh and she felt a blush creeping up her cheeks. She cleared her throat, “I’m Felicity, Felicity Smoak. Fourth grade.”
> 
> “Nice to meet you Felicity.” He took his time on the syllables of her name and made it sound like something she had never heard before.
> 
> And his smile. His smile. With those dimples. She had never seen a smile before that somehow felt like a warm hug when it was directed at her.
> 
> “Nice to meet you too Oliver. I’m assuming you’re taking the vacant phys ed position?”
> 
> Oliver nodded, “Yep.”
> 
> Their previous phys ed teacher had gotten a little too enthusiastic during one of his classes on the first week of school that year and it resulted in a broken ankle and the realization that he was probably too old for his job.
> 
> He had retired and they had been experiencing a myriad of subs (some better than others) until the administration found a permanent replacement.
> 
> Which was apparently Oliver.
> 
> She already knew that several of her fourth graders were going to have a massive crush on him… she certainly already did.

* * *

After that she had looked forward to Mondays like never before, because her class had gym class and she was always able to snag a minute or two to talk to Oliver when she dropped them off and picked them up. He seemed to enjoy their conversations as much as she did but… she never would’ve expected him to be her “secret admirer.”

Because he was, well… he was Oliver Queen and basically all the single female teachers (and some of the male ones) made it clear by the way they flirted with him that they were interested in him, and to think that he would be interested in  _her_  was—was  _unthinkable._

But the video didn’t lie, he had definitely been the one leaving her presents for Hanukkah.

Which, she supposed, in a way actually did sort of make sense now that she recalled their conversation from that Monday.

* * *

>   
> “So… do you have any plans for Christmas?” Oliver asked her while her students were getting lined up after class. “Break will be here before we know it.”
> 
> “Well I’m Jewish so… I’ll probably spend my break binge watching something on Netflix. Any recommendations?”
> 
> “Yes… but wait, when does Hanukkah start this year?”
> 
> “Tomorrow, actually.”
> 
> He frowned. “Oh, I’m sorry you don’t get a break to celebrate.”
> 
> She shrugged, “I’m used to the academic calendar not aligning with my holidays. And some years Hanukkah does fall close enough to Christmas that I end up getting a few days off… but it really doesn’t matter. With no one to celebrate with—it’s just not the same as it was when I was growing up. Hanukkah was the one time of the year that I actually felt close to my mom, and now—“
> 
> “Ms. Smoak?”
> 
> She turned her head to see her class waiting expectantly for her to lead them back to their classroom and she had to bid Oliver goodbye.

* * *

So maybe he just felt bad that she had no one to celebrate Hanukkah with and there wasn’t any romantic subtext to be read in the situation.

Either way, she was getting to the bottom of this.

Tomorrow being a Saturday and not a school day really threw a wrench into that plan though.

Or not.

Saturday morning she was drinking her coffee and mulling over every interaction she had had with Oliver thus far to determine if any of it could be considered flirting, when her doorbell rang.

Shuffling over to the door, she peered out the little window and took a surprised step backwards.

_He’s here. At your house._

She looked down at her worn out MIT sweatshirt and snowman print pajama bottoms and resigned herself to the fact that even if he was interested in her romantically, she was about to kill the magic when she opened the door.

Unlocking the door, she took a deep breath before swinging it open. A cold breeze made its way into the house and she shivered before working up the courage to lift her eyes to meet his. She instantly felt a rush of warmth flood her when she found him smiling shyly at her.

“Hey Felicity.”

“How’d you do it?” she blurted out.

“I—what?”

“Those Sufganiyot… they tasted exactly the same as the ones my mom and I used to get from this bakery when I was young. How’d you do that?”

Closing his eyes, he let out a little nervous laugh, before opening his eyes again. “How’d you know it was me?”

“I hacked into the school’s security cameras.” His eyebrows lifted in surprise and she hastily added, “Don’t judge me.”

“I’m not judging you, I’m impressed.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip to hide a smug smile and let him all the way into her foyer so she could shut out the cold outdoors. “So umm… are you here to give me a present since you can’t leave it on my desk like some Hanukkah ninja?”

“I’m here to ask you out on a date,” he answered point blank, catching her off guard.

“Oh.”

“I kept bailing on giving you those gifts myself, so I’m sorry for showing up here unexpected but–” His eyes flicked down her body and he got a look at her current ensemble, “—although to be fair I thought by noon you wouldn’t still be in your pajamas—“

“Yeah I’m not a morning person unless I have to be at school, and even that’s pushing it.” She held up her mug of steaming coffee, “I woke up less than an hour ago.”

The corners of his mouth turned up into an amused smile, “Gotcha.”

“So…” She took a small sip of her coffee, “Back to the part where you were asking me out on a date…”

“Yeah…I’ve actually wanted to ask you out for a while now but I couldn’t get over being nervous.”

She arched an eyebrow, “Seriously?”

“Seriously. You’re my favorite person at school and I’m always disappointed that we barely get to talk longer than a few minutes every week. But every time I tried to ask you on a date, I couldn’t do it.” He looked away shyly. “I think I was worried you would say no and then it would be awkward between us and I would lose one of the best parts of my week. I mean, I actually look forward to Mondays for once in my life.”

“Me too,” she admitted. “So, for the record, you don’t have to worry about me saying no.”

His dimpled smile returned as he asked, “Felicity, will you go to dinner with me tonight?”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah. But if you’re busy, I understand—“

“6:30?” she interrupted him.

He nodded, “6:30 works for me.”

“Okay.”

“Okay… well then I guess I’ll be back here in a few hours.”

There was a practically giddy smile on his face and it was just too cute to resist. As he turned to leave, she caught a hold of his arm and pulled him back to her so she could roll up on her toes and press a quick kiss to his lips.

“Thank you. For the surprises on my desk this week, but also just for wanting to help me celebrate Hanukkah. It means a lot.”

“You’re welcome. It seemed like you were really missing your mom because of it being the holidays and I— I didn’t want you to feel lonely.”

She kissed him again and this time, his hands came up to caress her face as he kissed her back. If she was being honest, she had daydreamed more than once about what it would be like to kiss him, but this was way better than she imagined it would be.

When they broke apart, she remarked, “You still owe me an explanation for how you managed to make Sufganiyot like a Jewish grandma.”


	4. Dec 7/8

Felicity looked out the window of the plane as they landed on the tarmac in Starling City. She hadn’t returned to her hometown since she and her mom had taken off for Vegas following the implosion of her parents’ marriage, but there was something comforting about seeing the once familiar skyline for the first time in almost a decade.

Once she had retrieved her luggage she made her way out to the street where the car she had requested was waiting for her.

“Starling Grand,” she told the driver.

“You visiting for the holidays?” the woman asked as she began to navigate them through the city traffic. Snow had begun to lightly fall and she looked out the window at the old and new stores and restaurants they passed by.

“Yeah.”

“Family?”

“No,” she shook her head. “They don’t live here anymore.”

“Friends?”

“Uhh…” She didn’t want to invite pity by being honest that she wasn’t exactly sure what she still had by way of friends in Starling and she was just planning on spending the holidays alone, so she answered, “Yeah.”

“That’s nice.” They pulled up outside the hotel, “Well, have a Merry Christmas.”

“Oh umm… I’m Jewish.”

“My apologies, Happy Hanukkah—and welcome home.”

_Home._

A small smile turned up the corners of her mouth as she stepped out of the car. After everything she had gone through in the past few years it was exactly what she needed. She hoped that Starling, even after all the time that had passed, still felt like the home she had once loved.

Once she got herself settled in her room, she took a quick nap before refreshing her ponytail and makeup. Bundling up in her winter coat, she walked next door to a coffee shop to grab something warm and sweet.

“A large vanilla chai latte please. And one of those snowflake shaped sugar cookies.”

“Okay, and your name for the order?”

“Felicity. Felicity Smoak.”

_“Felicity?”_

She turned towards the sound of the male voice and found herself looking up into blue eyes that looked strikingly familiar. The eyes were the only thing she recognized about him though—she was certain she would remember someone so gorgeously handsome. Of course, the last time she had been in Starling the guy might not have hit puberty yet.

“Wow, you—you’ve grown up,” the guy remarked, the tips of his ears turning pink.

“Uhh…”

“Oh. Umm… you don’t remember me, do you?” He extended out a hand, “It’s Oliver. Oliver Queen.”

_Oooooooh boy._

“Oliver?” She placed her hand in his, momentarily forgetting that he was intending to shake her hand, not hold it, and she blushed too as she retracted her hand. “I am  _so_ sorry. Of course I remember you. You umm… you look good. Like healthy and alive, good.” Shaking her head, she could feel herself spiraling into an awkward ramble. “Of course you’re alive. Why wouldn’t you be alive?”

“Latte for Felicity Smoak?”

_Thank God._

She turned away from Oliver to grab her coffee and cookie and flee the scene. Her original plan had been to find a corner of the coffee shop to park in with a book, but after making a complete fool of herself she was going to have to default to plan B and take her order to go.

Shuffling down the sidewalk back to the hotel, she didn’t notice an icy patch until she was sliding backwards. She braced herself for her butt making contact with freezing concrete, so it was quite a surprise when she landed in warm, solid arms instead that steadied her back onto her feet. By some small miracle, her coffee hadn’t spilled all over her and she turned around to offer her gratefulness to whoever had—

“Are you stalking me?” she blurted out.

“What? No, I just—I came out right behind you and I saw you slip. Are you okay?”

She looked down at her boots in embarrassment, “Yes. Thank you.”

“Good.” He shoved his hands into his pocket and his eyes darted around nervously. “Umm… you rushed out so quickly, I didn’t get a chance to ask if you wanted to maybe… get together to catch up while you’re in town?”

“Oh. Uhh…”

His face fell at her hesitation, “Or not. It’s okay if you don’t want to, I mean it’s been a long time. We were in eighth grade when you moved, right?”

“You were in eighth, I was in seventh. And only because I skipped third.” She started to shiver as snow continued to fall and she could feel her coffee getting cold in her hands. “I should get going, but it was good to see you again Oliver. Happy Holidays.”

She turned quickly and then, _very carefully_ , walked the rest of the way back to the Starling Grand. She knew it wasn’t fair that she hadn’t given him a yes or a no, but she honestly didn’t know what she wanted.

Sitting down on the edge of her bed, she sipped her now lukewarm latte and replayed the events of the past half hour.

_Oliver Queen._

He had been her best friend when she lived in Starling. Her best friend that she had a massive crush on.

Until the Queen family holiday party one year. They had ended up under some mistletoe, and when someone pointed it out, he had refused to kiss her… and very loudly told everyone around them that she was like his little sister.

It had crushed her little eleven year old heart, but she certainly hadn’t let anyone see her cry over it. 

Three days later, she came home from school to all of her things thrown in the back of her mom’s car and a long drive to Vegas ahead of them.

She never said goodbye and he never called. In all fairness, she hadn’t called him either, but her world had been the one spinning out of control and he hadn’t thought to check on her. Not once.

With a sigh, she threw her empty coffee cup into the trash can and fell back onto the mattress to stare up at the ceiling.

She didn’t think she actually had unresolved feelings for her childhood best friend…

It was his eyes.

No matter how much had changed about his appearance, those eyes were the same ones that crinkled up when he smiled and searched hers when he knew she was trying to hide that she was sad and—

_You were a little girl. You’ve outgrown this._

* * *

The next morning, she waited until the sidewalks had been cleared of snow before gingerly making her way back down to the coffee shop. Stepping up to the counter, she ordered another latte and a bagel before settling into a booth with her book.

Approximately thirteen minutes passed before she heard him.

“Good morning, Mr. Queen. The usual?”

“Yes, and it’s Oliver. Mr. Queen is my father.”

“Of course, sorry.”

She slumped down in her seat, covering her face with her book and hoping that he wouldn’t see her.

“I was hoping I’d see you here again.”

Stifling a groan, she slowly lowered her book to face him.

“Hi,” she greeted him half-heartedly. He had more stubble on his jaw than yesterday and she briefly wondered what that would feel like if he kissed her. She wondered what it would feel like to be kissed by him at all, since she had been denied that knowledge.

When he slid into the booth across from her— _uninvited_ —he pulled a photograph out of his pocket to set on the table.

She reluctantly stole a glance at it and couldn’t help but smile at the old memory it recalled.

“After I saw you yesterday, I went to my mom and dad’s house to go through some old pictures.” He tapped the image of them in the kitchen at the Queen mansion with Raisa making gingerbread houses. If she recalled correctly, they were around 8 and 10 years old. “You remember this?”

“Of course. I got mad because yours was perfect and mine looked it was hit by a royal icing blizzard.”

He laughed and it felt like being wrapped up in a warm blanket and fed a pan of brownies fresh out of the oven.

“That’s not what I remember, I thought yours was perfect.”

“Yeah well, you tried to make me feel better about it.” She dipped her head and added in a quiet mutter, “Like a big brother.”

If he heard her, he didn’t show any indication and instead pulled out another photo of them hanging upside down from the big maple tree in the front yard of her old house.

“I miss that house,” she remarked with a sigh, running her fingertips over the view of it in the background of the photo.

“You want to take a drive?”

“What?”

“By your old place… I could take you.”

“Oh.” She gave him a shy smile, “I’d like that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She slipped her book into her bag. “Let’s go.”

They rode in silence and she was glad for the opportunity to just look out the window at the familiar roads and homes they passed.

When they pulled up to her old house, the first thing she noticed was a for-sale sign. “This whole time…?”

“No. Another family has been living here since your dad sold the place, but I guess they’re moving on now too.”

Her eyes traced the house, the place she had once called home, and she let the memories flood over her. Good, bad—towards the end,  _ugly_. The fighting, so much fighting. Sitting in her room while her parents yelled in the hallway just outside the door. Oliver staying on the phone with her until she fell asleep on nights when both her parents left the house with the slamming of doors, forgetting in their anger that their daughter was huddled on her bed too scared to cry.

Tears started to stream down her face and Oliver reached over to lay his hand on her thigh.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think that coming by the house would be hard like this.” She brushed away some of her tears with her sleeve and took a shaky breath, “Why do I lose everyone in the most painful of ways? My dad.” She started to say  _“you”_  but bit it back and moved on with her list. “My boyfriend.”

“What happened with your boyfriend?”

“He killed himself,” she answered flatly. “Almost two years ago exactly. When we were seniors, we did something stupid and he took the fall for it. Went to jail. I guess he figured if he was going to be stuck there for the rest of his life, he didn’t want his life to be a long one.”

“Felicity… I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head. She didn’t want to do this with him. She had come so far since Cooper’s death and she couldn’t let herself be dragged back into the black hole of guilt by rehashing everything. Not now, when she was trying to move forward.

“At first I thought it was my fault, but I’ve had enough time to process and recognize that it wasn’t. Now I’m just trying to figure out what my next step should be once I finish my Master’s program in May.”

“And you ended up here.”

“Yeah. I think I wanted to see if it still felt like home. Like the right place to come back to.”

“And does it?”

She shrugged, “I don’t know. I’m trying to get away from everything that happened back in Massachusetts…. but I forgot to consider that there were so many painful memories here too.”

They were silent for a few moments before he spoke up, “Remember the time we stayed up  _all night_ playing Lego Star Wars on your new PlayStation 2 you got for your birthday one year?”

She sniffled, “Yeah. You wanted to barrel on through the levels, but I had to hang behind and collect every single coin in a spot before I could move on.”

“It drove me crazy.”

“I know.” She gave him a watery smile. “But we still beat the whole game in a week playing it my way.”

He returned her smile. “You were always the smart one.”

She wanted so badly to ask him what happened. Ask him why he never called. But something held her back.

“My family’s holiday party is tomorrow night,” he continued. “I’m sure everyone would be really excited to see you there. You’ve been missed.”

When she looked down at his hand still on her leg, he retracted it quickly and avoided meeting her eyes.

“I’ll think about it,” she consented. “Could you umm… take me back to the hotel now?”

* * *

She stared at the dress hanging over the bathroom door and contemplated whether or not she was going to put it on.

Put it on and make an appearance at the party. The party that would in so many ways be like the one that was her last memory of Oliver.

A pros and cons list ran through her head as she paced the short length of the hotel room. On one hand, she had wanted to spend the holidays alone.

On the other…

It felt weird to knock on a front door that she had entered so many times when she was younger without needing to wait for something so formal as someone opening it and inviting her in.

“You came.” His face lit up when he saw her and she was instantly convinced that she had made the right decision.

Smiling shyly, she took a step into the foyer, “Yeah.”

“I’m glad, because I asked Raisa to make a last minute batch of her chocolate Rugelach. I remember how much you liked it.”

She stared at him for a second, unsure of what to make of anything that had happened between them since their encounter in the coffee shop the other day. It equal parts felt so right to be in the presence of her best friend again, and so wrong to be ignoring the herd of elephants in the room that she wondered if he even saw.

“May I take your coat for you?” he asked, shifting awkwardly under her scrutiny.

“Yes.” She unbuttoned it and slid it off of her shoulders to hand him. The noise he made when her dress underneath was revealed did not escape her notice. “Thank you.”

She watched as he disappeared into the coat closet, remaining frozen to the spot as she filled with apprehension about walking towards the sounds of people talking and glasses clinking and heels on hardwood in the living room a few feet away.

Oliver returned to her, and cupped her elbow gently, “Would you like to go see Raisa first?”

She looked over at him gratefully, “Yeah.”

They fell into step together down the hallway that she had traversed a million times towards the kitchen. His hand brushed against hers at one point and she thought for a second that maybe he wanted to hold her hand.

“Raisa?” Oliver called for her attention when they walked into the kitchen that hadn’t changed since she had sat at the counter for pancake breakfasts and snuck in with Oliver late at night to raid the freezer for ice cream.

Raisa looked up and a huge smile spread across her face when she noticed who was accompanying him.

Felicity strode towards her comforting embrace and let her pull her into a hug. “It’s so good to see you Raisa.”

“Felicity, my dear. Look at you. So grown up, so beautiful.” She hugged her again. “Oh I’ve missed you.” She whispered in her ear, “And I’m not the only one.”

Felicity blushed at what she was implying and stole a quick glance at Oliver when Raisa released her.

She took a seat then at one of the stools at the counter so that she could catch her up on what she had been up to since moving—glossing over the parts that weren’t worth reminiscing about. Raisa gave her a plate of Rugelach and the sweet, chocolate-y pastry tasted every bit as good as she remembered.

“I should probably get back to the party before my Mom wonders what happened to me.” Oliver remarked after a few minutes. “Do you want to stay here or…?”

“Oh umm, no I’ll come with you.” She wiped the corners of her mouth with a napkin before hopping down from the stool.

The living room was a flurry of activity. People who remembered her—people who she could tell were just pretending to remember her, and Thea Queen, who only knew her from pictures, since she was a toddler when she moved—all wanted to talk to her. After her original plan of spending the holidays alone, it was overwhelming to instead be reuniting with people she hadn’t seen since she was eleven. Who all wanted to know the details of she and her mother’s sudden disappearance from Starling.

“I love the blonde, you look so much like your mother. How is she?”

She and her mother’s relationship had been tumultuous at best since she ripped her away from her entire life without bothering to ask what she wanted. Since taking off for Massachusetts she had barely spoken to her at all.

“Uhh…”

“Felicity,” Oliver came up beside her. “May I steal you away for a moment?”

“Yes,” she practically shouted in relief.

“I noticed you were starting to get the SOS look on your face,” he muttered under his breath when she excused herself from the woman she had been talking to and followed Oliver away from the people who had been waiting to swarm her.

“Thanks for the rescue.” She sighed, “I think I might head out for the night. This has been a bit much.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m still glad I came.”

“Yeah?”

They were back in the foyer now, _alone,_  and her eyes cast upwards to avoid the earnest look he was giving her. She let out a quiet, dry laugh at what hung above them.

He followed her gaze, “Didn’t think I’d ever get a chance for a do-over.”

“Wha—“

Her sentence faltered as took a step in close and dropped his mouth to almost meet hers. A mere millimeter separated his lips from hers, his breath warm on her face. Rolling up on her toes, she closed the rest of the distance.

His hand came to encircle her waist and pull her flush to him as they kissed.

_Home._

_This_  felt like coming home.

Home wasn’t a city, or a house, it was a person. The person who had always been her home.

When they broke apart for air, she felt a little dazed and clung to his shoulders to keep herself from stumbling backwards.

“I’m sorry that I never called.”

“Huh?” she breathed out.

“You left and I never called. I let you think—“ He rested his forehead against hers. “Felicity. You were my best friend and I—“

“I had the biggest crush on you,” she whispered.

“I know. And I was in love with you.” She felt her heart skip a beat and he brushed his nose against hers. “I think I still am a little bit in love with you.”

She closed her eyes and the space between her eyebrows crinkled. “I don’t understand.”

“I wanted to kiss you that night—you looked so beautiful in that red dress—but I was an eighth grade boy, I was stupid. I saw all the people around us and I panicked and I messed up and I didn’t get a chance to make things right before you were just…gone. I missed you so much, but I didn’t know if you wanted to talk to me. You never said goodbye so I thought maybe you were happy you wouldn’t have to see me again after I hurt you.”

“You should’ve called.”

_I was sad and lonely and I needed you._

“I know that now.” He took a deep breath. “Felicity, you took a piece of my heart with you when you left. Since then nothing has felt quite right—not until the other day when I saw you in the coffee shop and—“

She didn’t let him finish before she was kissing him again.

* * *

“Oh, Smoak! You have lost your touch,” Oliver taunted.

“Hey! I’ve been working my ass off getting two masters degrees, I haven’t had much time to play video games.”

They were sitting on his bed in his apartment in their pajamas playing Xbox and making out. It was shaping up to be one of the best day she had had in years.

After the party at the Queen’s the other night, she had checked out of her hotel in favor of staying with Oliver and the two of them had been spending hours talking and making up for lost time. The boy she had known had grown into a man, but he was still her Oliver and falling back into their old rhythms again had happened almost effortlessly. With all the history they had between them, the years they had spent apart didn’t seem to matter—hadn’t been enough to turn them into strangers. She didn’t know what was going to happen moving forward, she still had to return to Massachusetts after the New Year to finish school, but she didn’t want to think about that yet. She just wanted to enjoy being home for as long as she could.

He dropped his controller and looped an arm around her waist to pull her back against his chest and press a kiss to the top of her head. “I still can’t believe this is real—that you’re back. Best Christmas present ever.”

“Even better than when I was in fourth grade and Raisa was trying to teach me how to knit so I gave you a homemade scarf?” His chest shook with laughter and she dug her fingers into his thigh. “Hey! That was made with a lot of love.”

“I wore it to school every single day all winter long, didn’t I?”

“Yeah.” She tilted her head back to look up at him and smiled. “That should have been my clue that you were in love with me, because that scarf was hideous.”

He shrugged, “I would’ve done anything to make you happy.”

“Except kiss me,” she teased, turning around in his lap to face him.

He rolled over, flipping her underneath him and pressing a few delicate kisses to her lips, “I’ve been trying to make up for that.”

She reached up to trace his jawline with her fingertips. It was covered in that rough, scratchy stubble that she had learned was the perfect combination with his soft mouth.

“Birthdays were the worst,” he continued. “And when I learned how to drive and you weren’t in the back seat laughing at me for accidentally running into the bush at the end of our driveway. Vacations to the lake and you weren’t racing me off the end of the dock. Prom. I didn’t even go because it should have been you I was pretending to dance with only begrudgingly but secretly loving every minute of it because I got to hold you close.”

“I didn’t go to my prom because I was in my goth phase.”

He arched an eyebrow, “Your  _what?_ ”

“I had black and purple hair and everything.”

“No way. Please tell me there’s photographic evidence of that.”

She screwed her eyes shut in embarrassment, “There might be, but you’re never seeing it.”

“Not fair. You made fun of me for all my terrible haircuts when I was younger,” he tickled her side and she squirmed as she laughed.

“I still thought you were cute though.”

“Do you still think I’m cute?”

“Mhmm…” She reached behind him to tug on the hemline of his T-shirt, encouraging him to take if off. “And some other adjectives…”

* * *

“Do you want to go by your house one last time before your flight tomorrow?”

She had been in Starling for almost a month now but, as December had turned into January, the time had come for her to return to Massachusetts for the final semester of her grad program.

She looked up from her tablet, “Why?”

“Just because…”

She felt like there was something he wasn’t telling her and her curiosity was piqued.

“Okay, sure.”

This time on the drive over, he held her hand and pointed out places along the way that were new since she had moved.

“Oh, it sold,” she remarked when they pulled up alongside the house and she noticed the sign out front.

“I know.” He got out of the car and came around to open her side and usher her out. “Because I bought it.”

“What?” she climbed out and took his hand.

“I know that you have some really terrible memories from this house, but you loved it too. Loved the maple tree out front that turns a brilliant orange in autumn. Loved the porch swing that you would always read on. Loved sitting on the roof to watch the stars. And some of my best memories growing up are from being here with you.”

They stood in the front yard filled with snow and she could see them building snowmen and having snowball fights and tracking snow into the house to drink hot chocolate. Memories playing like a filmstrip in her mind.

“Yeah.”

“So… I was thinking maybe, after you finish your program in Massachusetts, you’d want to move back home.”

She blinked in surprise as what he was saying resonated with her. “Are you saying that you want me to live here, with you?”

“I mean, it can be just as roommates—“

“Roommates?” She shoved him into the snow in exasperation and jumped on top of him. “ _Roommates_ , Oliver? Really?”

Once his surprise faded from landing in the snow, he grinned and wrapped his arms around her to keep her from escaping, “Well if you had something else in mind…”

She kissed him in response, his face warm even in the cold air, and melted her body into his.

“I guess I’ll take that as a yes?” he asked when she pulled away and climbed off of him, brushing snow off of her coat.

She reached for his hands to help him up off of the ground, “Yes.” When he pressed a kiss to her forehead, she added, “But you have to promise me you’re going to call me—“

“Every day. Everyday until you come home to me,” he vowed.


	5. Dec 9

“Thanks for coming,” Oliver greeted Raisa at the door with a hug. “I doubt we’ll be out too late, but I think Felicity just needed one last chance to get out of the house before the baby.”

He had found her the other night sitting on the floor of the nursery with a pint of mint chip after she had reorganized all the gifts from her baby shower… for the third time.

She had been the calm one, the “ _my mom fed me nachos from the bar at the Grand before I was off the bottle and I turned out fine_ ” one, while he had been the one reading all the books and asking all the questions at the doctor’s office and freaking out about being responsible for a tiny human. This week though, without her job to distract her, he had started to see her crack and realized she was just as nervous as him. Which meant that now it was his turn to stay calm and be the one assuring her that everything was going to be fine.

“It’s my pleasure. You know I’m always here for you and your family.” Raisa squeezed his arm reassuringly before walking towards William’s room to say hi to him.

Checking the time, he realized they needed to get going soon and Felicity hadn’t emerged from their bedroom yet.

When he opened the door to peek inside, he found her standing in front of the mirror in her dress and a smile spread across his face at the sight of his wife. She had always been the most beautiful woman in the world to him, but pregnant with their baby—she was somehow even more radiant.

* * *

Felicity frowned at her reflection in the floor length mirror in their bedroom as she smoothed the fabric of her gown over her, “ _this baby could come any day now,_ ” figure.

“How do celebrities manage to pull off looking so good while pregnant on the red carpet?” she muttered.

She was accompanying Oliver to a holiday gala for the SCPD that evening because, while he had assured her he wouldn’t be offended if she chose to sit this one out, she needed to get out of the house before she stress ate a pint of ice cream while rearranging everything in the nursery again. The black tie dress code however was an unwelcome departure from her sweatpants and husband’s old stretched out sweatshirts she had been wearing for the past week since she took her leave from work to prepare for the arrival of their baby.

She was still considering her appearance when her husband walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her to rest his hands over her round belly.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered in her ear before pressing a delicate kiss to her neck. “Stop fretting.”

She tilted her head to the side to give him better access and he responded with more kisses. “I’m not fretting,” she muttered.

“You’ve got the crinkle between your eyebrows,” he mumbled against her skin.

She sighed, “I look very pregnant.”

Looking back up at their reflections in the mirror, he beamed when he rubbed her belly and was rewarded with a kick. “Mhmm. I’m not an expert, but I think that’s expected when you’re nine months pregnant. Are you sure you’re up for going out tonight?”

“Definitely,” she insisted. They weren’t going to be making it to very many holiday festivities with her impending due date, she wanted to take advantage of this opportunity.

“Okay, but if you start to feel tired, don’t hesitate to tell me it’s time to leave.” She nodded in understanding and he pressed one last kiss to her cheek.  _“So beautiful.”_

When he started to walk away she looked down at her toes—or at least the direction of her toes since she had stopped being able to see them a while ago, and spoke up, “I need help with my shoes.”

It frustrated her to no end that she even had to ask for help with such a simple task, but her inability to reach her own feet  _had_  resulted in an endearingly adorable moment the other day when Oliver had painted her toenails for her.

“What?”

Making her way over to their bed, she sat down on the edge of the mattress to wiggle her toes for him and point at her Converse set out with a pair of socks. The one benefit of wearing a floor length gown was that no one was going to be able to see her not so black tie appropriate footwear. He shook his head in amusement as he knelt in front of her and lifted the bottom hem of her dress. Taking ahold of one of her legs, he caressed her ankle before sliding his hands up to massage her calf. It was a nightly ritual of his, and one she appreciated greatly, but one that usually led to activities that would result in the Mayor being late to make his speech at the gala.

“Don’t get lost down there,” she chastised half-heartedly, moaning softly when he found a knot. “We have somewhere to be.”

“Yes Mrs. Queen,” he replied dutifully with a smirk, setting her leg down and reaching for her socks to put them on for her.

Once her shoes were laced up, he rose to stand and held out his hands for her to help her up.

“But… I won’t complain if you want to take care of me later,” she added flirtatiously, attempting a shimmy of her hips that elicited a raised eyebrow from him—only he would still find her seductive in her current state—as she took a step closer to him. At least as close as she could get with a baby in between them.

He leaned in to kiss her forehead. “Gladly.”

They walked—more like waddled in her case—hand in hand out of their bedroom and passed through the kitchen to say goodbye to Raisa and William, who were working on mixing up the dough a gingerbread house.

William looked up from his task and smiled at her. “You look really nice.”

Leave it to her boys to squash her insecurities.

“Why thank you.” She did a very awkward curtsy. “I had a feeling they wouldn’t let me into this fancy party if I showed up in my sweatpants.”

“I think you could get away with anything,” Oliver remarked, ushering her towards the door. “But I am a fan of this dress.” When they were out of earshot of the kitchen, he added, “And I will look forward to taking it off later.”


	6. Dec 10-14

Oliver groaned in frustration at his sixth failed attempt at the math problem he had been working on for almost an hour. He wanted to be in the kitchen, but he was forcing himself to get this homework assignment done before testing his new cinnamon roll recipe.

“What is even the point of this?” he muttered to himself, erasing his work and recopying out the problem.

Of course, he knew what the point of it was. For his parents to not cut him off, he needed to be shadowing his father at QC or taking college classes. And since his dream was to be a chef, not his father, he needed to figure out polynomials so he could get back to formulating the perfect cinnamon roll to share with the 500,832 people subscribed to his YouTube channel.

_YouTube._

Reaching for his laptop, he typed in  _“factoring polynomials step by step”_  into the search box on the site. The first video that came up was created by user  _BabblingBlonde_  and he clicked on it.

By the end of the 4:23 second video, he didn’t feel like an idiot anymore. The Babbling Blonde, aka an admittedly cute girl named Felicity Smoak, somehow managed to make the problem seem so simple. Grabbing a fresh sheet of notebook paper, he gave the problem another go and was relieved when he ended up with a probable solution.

He gave Felicity’s video a like and left a quick comment about how helpful it had been before setting to work on finishing the rest of his problems.

* * *

Felicity felt her phone vibrate and fished it out of her pocket to see a notification that she had received a new comment on one of her videos from user  _QueenCooks._

_This was really helpful! You’re way better at explaining things than my textbook._

She smiled at the compliment that resembled hundreds of others she had gotten. She had started her channel while she was at MIT, after she had spent a semester working in the tutoring center and discovered that she was pretty good at explaining math and science. Her channel had grown rapidly over the past few years to the point where she could support herself with it, her weekly “cram session” Q&A livestreams brought in thousands of viewers, and she was in the middle of coding a companion app to her video content. Thanks to her online persona, her nerdiness had actually made her popular for once in her life.

She almost slipped her phone back into her pocket but something made her decide to tap the username of the commenter.

From there, she found herself watching a tutorial for making double fudge brownies and trying to decide what was more delicious looking. The dessert or the man making it.

_Oliver Queen._

He was dressed in a flannel, his sleeves rolled up and out of the way to reveal muscular forearms, and he had gorgeous blue eyes that she felt like we’re looking right through the camera and into hers.

An hour later, her roommate found her in the same spot on the couch, still making her way through the videos on his channel. For someone who’s cooking skills were limited to microwaving take-out, she had suddenly developed a keen interest in the culinary arts.

“What are you watching?” Iris inquired, leaning over the back of the couch.

She startled out of the trance she was in and muttered, “A hot guy making chicken and waffles. I think I’m in love. I think this is what love feels like.”

Iris laughed and she handed her the phone so she could see for herself. “Oh… oh wow.”

“Right? After the past hour of watching him I’m suddenly feeling very motivated to attempt to bake something. Do you think we have ingredients for brownies?”

“Probably not. When was the last time you or I even turned on the oven?” Iris handed her her phone back. “Please don’t burn down our kitchen.”

* * *

He had just finished cleaning up his kitchen from the cinnamon rolls, when his computer dinged with a YouTube notification. Clicking on it, he read a comment on his double fudge brownies recipe video.

_BabblingBlonde: As a notorious kitchen disaster, I’m pleasantly surprised at being able to report that I somehow managed to recreate these. My roommate and I might end up eating the entire pan tonight. DELICIOUS._

He wondered if it was just a coincidence or if she had purposefully checked out one of his videos after seeing his comment on her video earlier in the day.

Either way, curiosity got the best of him and he grabbed his phone to search for “Felicity Smoak” on Instagram.

She had two accounts, one for her channel that didn’t really tell him anything about her except that she was brilliant (something he had already gathered) and a personal account that was private.

His finger hovered over the “follow” for what was probably close to thirty seconds as he deliberated before he tapped it. Setting his phone aside, he told himself he wouldn’t care if she accepted his request or not. He didn’t even know why he was suddenly so interested in her anyway. She was just a stranger on the internet.  

* * *

“What the—Iris!”

“What?” Iris groaned from where she was lying on the floor in a sugar coma.

They had, in fact, demolished the entire pan of double-fudge brownies they had made following Oliver Queen’s recipe, and the regrets were starting to hit.

“Oliver just requested to follow me on Instagram.”

For someone who had declared a few minutes ago that she wouldn’t be able to move for another three days, Iris was in the seated position pretty quickly, “For real? Like, _“hot chef Oliver,”_  Oliver?”

She waved her phone at her, “Yeah.”

“Ooooh girl, you’ve caught his interest.”

“He’s a random stranger from the internet.”

“So is every guy on Tinder.”

She cringed, “Which I don’t use for a reason.”

“Felicity. Just accept his request. It’s not like you have anything embarrassing on there.”

“Fine.” She tapped her screen and then set her phone aside, removing her glasses and massaging her temples. Her head was aching and she was pretty certain it was due to the amount of sugar she had consumed.

“Hey… are you going home for the holidays?” Iris asked from her spot on the floor she had returned to.

“Like… to Vegas?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know… I wasn’t planning on it.” Vegas didn’t really feel like home, but the idea of spending the holidays alone was a little dreary. “But I mean… I still have a few weeks to decide.”

“Well you’re welcome to come to Central City with me. There’s always a place for you at the West house.”

“Thanks. I’ll think about it.”

Iris sighed, “I can’t believe we ate an entire pan of brownies like we just got dumped.”

“These were way better than the ones I ate when Cooper dumped me.”

_Three years ago._

Had it really been that long since she had dated anyone?

She briefly entertained the idea of this Oliver being interested in her before realizing how ridiculous that was. Besides the fact that he was a random stranger from the Internet, he didn’t exactly seem like the kind of guy who would fall for a girl for her ability to help him with his math homework.   

Her phone lit up showing that he had liked her most recent picture– one of her and Iris in the kitchen proudly displaying their freshly baked brownies. That was probably the logical explanation for him wanting to follow her. He had mentioned at the end of his video that if people recreated his recipe, they should post a picture and tag him in it. But she hadn’t bothered to tag him since her account was private. So he had definitely gone looking for her.

Shaking her head, she set her phone aside and forced herself to stop overthinking.

* * *

“Hey everybody, welcome to Sunday night Cram Session,” Felicity was saying when he joined the livestream. He didn’t have a specific question to ask this week, he just liked listening to her and it made good background noise while he started to decorate his Christmas tree. This was honestly the first time in his life that he could say he was attracted to someone’s intelligence— _and he would most certainly never admit it aloud_ —but there was something about listening to her break down math and science concepts so effortlessly that had captured his attention. Maybe it was the obvious passion in her demeanor. It was the same way he sounded talking about searching out the perfect ingredients for a recipe or how to perfect a certain cooking technique.

He glanced around his Christmas tree at his laptop screen where she was smiling and fiddling with her blonde curls while she explained how to balance chemical equations.

It also didn’t hurt that he thought she was pretty.

His grades were definitely benefiting from his new crush. He had actually been motivated to study thanks to watching her videos, and he had gotten a noteworthy B on his math exam the day before.

She had accepted his follow request on Instagram and subscribed to his channel after leaving the comment on his brownie video, but she hadn’t shown any further interest in him in the almost two weeks since. He knew he could just try messaging her but he wasn’t sure how to start a conversation.

He was taking a batch of cookies out of the oven that he had been recipe testing for a Christmas cookie video when something that she said before signing off from her livestream gave him an idea for how to get her attention.

Felicity was lying in bed scrolling absentmindedly through her YouTube subscriptions feed when a video caught her eye.

_“Three Desserts for Hanukkah”_

She hadn’t watched any of his videos since the other week when she had fallen into the black hole of binge watching them. She had been trying not to think about him. Trying not to notice when he left a comment on one of her videos. Trying to resist the urge to follow him back on Instagram. Trying to ignore her curiosity towards him.

Despite Iris’ insistence that he was interested in her, she was convinced his attention was no different than any of her other subscribers and he was only interested in her academic assistance.

That conviction started to crack though when she clicked on the video.

“Today I’m continuing my holiday recipe series with three desserts for Hanukkah: Sufganiyot, rugelach, and chocolate babka.” Her mouth practically watered. Over the fact that she could practically taste the delicious desserts that she usually indulged in during the holidays. Not because he was wearing a sweater that was a little snug across his muscular arms and torso and the grey color made his eyes look incredibly blue and—and she reminded herself she wasn’t supposed to be letting herself get distracted by him, so she focused on his hands instead… which was possibly even worse. They were the kind of hands that it was easy to imagine were good at more things than just cooking. “These classic treats might seem daunting to make but I’m going to break down the steps so that even self proclaimed disasters in the kitchen can feel confident recreating them.”

Her eyes widened and she almost dropped her phone on her face.

The way he had worded that sentence echoed what she had commented on his brownie video.

 _Coincidence?_  She had to admit it was probably not.

It was like he was talking right to her and she barely paid attention to the rest of the tutorial as her mind spun.

If he was trying to get her attention, the ball was in her court now, so when the video ended she opened Instagram and sent him a message before she could second guess herself.

 **felicity_smoak:**  hi

_Hi?_

_“Oh honey…no wonder you’ve been single for three years.”_ She could practically hear her mother saying in her head.

 **oliver.j.queen:**  hi

Well, clearly he wasn’t any smoother than she. Biting her lip, she tapped out her next message.

 **felicity_smoak:** saw your new video

* * *

He smiled as he read her message and contemplated what to reply back with. This was his opening, his chance. It had been awhile since he dated, and he hadn’t exactly ever met a girl over YouTube before, but he hoped that he hadn’t lost all of his ability to flirt.

 **oliver.j.queen:**  you mentioned on your livestream the other night that you celebrate Hanukkah. thought you might want to expand your culinary repertoire beyond double fudge brownies ;)

 **felicity_smoak:**  so it was for me

 **oliver.j.queen:**  of course it was. had to get your attention somehow.

There was no reply for a few minutes and he worried that he had come on too strong. She probably wasn’t interested in him like that and it probably was weird that he–

 **felicity_smoak:**  why?

He breathed a sigh of relief that she responded.

 **oliver.j.queen:**  I like you

felicity_smoak: you don’t know me

_Valid point. But…_

**oliver.j.queen:**  I want to

* * *

Felicity felt her eyelids growing heavy as she stared at her phone. She and Oliver had been messaging back and forth for—she checked the time at the top of her screen—almost four hours now.

_Four hours?_

She hadn’t even noticed the time ticking away and now it was long past when she had intended to go to bed.

Their conversation had begun with how they got started with their channels and somehow arrived at where they were now, arguing over which song from Hamilton was the best.

Needless to say, he didn’t feel so much like a stranger on the internet anymore.

 **felicity_smoak:**  we’re going to have to call a truce on this because I’m about to fall asleep

 **oliver.j.queen:** to be continued?

 **oliver.j.queen:** like not this specific debate because it’s obvious we’re both on the same level of stubbornness but just… talking some more?

 **felicity_smoak:**  lol yes

 **felicity_smoak:**  I’d like that

She sent him her number and told him he should call sometime before shutting off her phone and letting her eyes fall shut—slipping into a dream that involved him and brownie batter.

The next morning she was nursing a cup of coffee and trying to wake herself up after being awake half the night, when Iris walked into the kitchen.

“What happened to you?” she asked, pouring her own cup of coffee before sitting across from her at their little kitchenette table.

“I was up until 3am.”

“Doing what?”

“Talking to Oliver Queen,” she replied casually before taking another sip of her coffee.

Iris lowered her mug slowly and arched an eyebrow, “Oh?”

“Yeah. You were right, he…” She smiled as she recalled their conversation. “He likes me.”

“And you…?”

“I like him too. Is that crazy?”

“Uhh, no. The man is gorgeous, I would suggest you get your glasses prescription updated if you couldn’t see that. Hot,  _and_  he can cook.”

“And he’s really nice and easy to talk to…” She had felt almost an instant connection with him when they were messaging back and forth. If it hadn’t been so late, she could’ve kept their conversation going for hours more. Drumming her fingers on the table, she continued “But he lives on the other side of the country in Star City…”

* * *

“Okay, so you want to keep an eye on your heat to make sure that your oil stays at a constant temperature the whole time–”

“I know, I know. I watched the video like three times.” Her brow furrowed as she stared at the pot of hot oil. “This was not a good idea, there’s no way I’m going to be able to pull this off,” she muttered.

“You’ve got this,” he assured her, watching as she tilted her computer screen so that he could better see what she was doing and offer advice. He managed to talk her through the frying of her sufganiyot–with only one getting burnt beyond being edible– and smiled at the pleasantly surprised expression on her face when she was done. “See, I told you.”

“You’re a miracle worker.”

“I think you were exaggerating when you said you were a disaster in the kitchen.”

“No, I was not. You’re just a really good teacher. Which reminds me, how’d your finals go this morning?” she asked, dusting her sufganiyot with powdered sugar as per his instructions.

“Good. I think. Thanks for helping me study.”

She had stayed up late with him last night quizzing him over FaceTime on what he needed to know for his last two exams of the semester. He had been nervous about them, but she had given him the confidence boost he needed by helping him to see how much he did know.

“Of course. It’s kind of my job.” She licked powdered sugar off of her fingers and he involuntarily licked his lips–wishing he was standing in her kitchen with her and could kiss her.  It was weird, feeling so close to her because of all the time they had spent talking the past week, while being so far away. Even 1080p HD wasn’t clear enough. He wanted to be able to see her face to face, hear her laugh not through a speaker, cook her dinner instead of watch her cook via a screen. “I’m thinking of starting to offer some one on one tutoring sessions. Do you think people would be willing to pay for that?”

“I would.”

“Well you’re a little biased, since you have a crush on me,” she teased and he dipped his head shyly. “Although, you might not be the only one of my subscribers who do. You’re just the lucky one in a million that I have a crush on too,” she added, looking up from her task and winking. Except that she could not wink to save her life. It was an awkwardly endearing blink.

“Do you have plans for the holidays?” he asked abruptly.

She tilted her head, “I was thinking of going with my roommate to Central City….”

“Oh,” he deflated in disappointment. He didn’t know what he was hoping she’d say–

“But I’m not fully committed to that plan.”

 _That._  That was more what he was hoping she’d say. 

Felicity grabbed her suitcase at baggage claim and it fully sunk in that she was actually going to be seeing Oliver any moment now. It had been an impulsive decision to buy a plane ticket to Star City. One she had debated up until the moment that her flight had taken off in Massachusetts. Not because she didn’t want to see Oliver…. but because she worried that he wasn’t going to feel the same way about her when she was actually standing in front of him.

Looking around the terminal, the corners of her mouth turned up in a tentative smile when she spotted the familiar face.

He strode towards her and she didn’t have time to be nervous about what to say to him because as soon as he reached her he was crushing her in a hug. She hoped she didn’t smell too terribly after a cross continental flight and she suddenly wished she would have made a beeline for a bathroom before he could find her.

When he finally released her, she felt a little unsteady on her feet from his unexpected embrace and she clutched his arm.

“Hi,” she breathed out.

“Hi,” he returned with a dimpled grin. “You’re shorter than I expected.”

“Sorry?”

He laughed and pulled her back against him, tucking her under his chin and splaying his hands out across her back. “Mmm I don’t mean that in a bad way. How was your flight?”

“Long.” She looked up at him, resting her chin on his chest, “But worth it.”

“I’m really glad you decided to come.”

“Thanks for inviting me.”

They walked hand in hand out of the airport. After two and a half weeks of being— whatever they were—“together,” she supposed, but not actually  _together_ , it was so nice to be able to feel his fingers intertwined with hers.

When they got to his apartment, he took her suitcase into his bedroom. “I umm… I have a sleeper sofa in the living room, so this room’s all yours.”

“Oh. Thanks… but I could’ve slept in the living room, you didn’t have to give up your room.”

_Or we could’ve shared this bed, a concept I would not at all have been opposed to._

“No, it’s fine,” he shook his head dismissively. “You’re my guest and I want you to be comfortable. Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” she answered emphatically. “The only food they had on the plane were these tiny packs of pretzels… I’m just going to change into some clean clothes quick and I’ll be right out.”

He nodded in understanding and when he left the room she sat down on the edge of the bed with a sigh. Maybe she was right to worry that their romantic chemistry only existed when they were on opposite ends of the country. Maybe this was going to be a more platonic visit than she had thought and it was going to end with their relationship fizzling out before it even really started. Maybe she should’ve savored that hug at the airport a little bit more.

_Or maybe he’s just trying to be a gentleman about the sleeping arrangements and you need to stop overthinking before you self sabotage a good thing you have going with him._

* * *

“Hey everybody, happy first night of Hanukkah and welcome to my final Cram Session of the semester. Hopefully by now most of you are enjoying your holiday breaks, but for those of you who are still finishing up finals, let’s get to studying.”

She was sitting cross legged on the floor of his living room and he smiled as he watched her start to answer the first question, before returning his attention to the comments he was replying to under his latest video. While he had been eagerly awaiting her visit, he had also been nervous. Nervous that hanging out with him in person would cause her to change her mind about him, but cooking for them earlier had helped him to relax.

 _“I feel like I’m watching one of your videos… just like a super HD version,”_  she had remarked earlier as she sat at the counter and watched him cook.  _“And I get to actually eat the food afterwards without having to attempt to make it myself, which is a major plus.”_

After eating they had gone out to find a menorah that was now set up by his window for her to light the first candle on that evening since hadn’t wanted to risk bringing hers from home on her flight.

_“My mom would kill me if anything happened to that menorah—it’s a family heirloom. I can just picture her face if I had packed it and my luggage got lost…”_

Menorah successfully obtained they had settled in to watch Die Hard.

 _“You’ve never seen Die Hard?”_ he had asked incredulously.  _“It’s a Christmas classic.”_

 _“Well, first of all,”_ she gestured to the menorah set up by his window.  _“I don’t celebrate Christmas.”_

_“Fair enough. But I still can’t let you go back to Massachusetts without watching Die Hard.”_

He was pretty sure she only pretended to enjoy the movie for his benefit but he hoped that she was still genuinely enjoying spending time with him—as much as he was with her. He didn’t want to think about her going back to Massachusetts and them having to do long distance again. 

Her Cram Session lasted for an hour and, after she had signed off for the night, she looked over at him, “People on the internet are crazy.”

“We’re people on the internet.”

“Okay, yeah. But…”

She hopped up from her seat on the floor and brought her laptop over to him to show him some comments that had been left during her livestream.

 _ClaireM1347:_  omg are you at Oliver Queen’s apartment?? I totally recognize that Christmas tree from the background of his latest video!!

 

> —replies—
> 
> _Soccergurl782:_ omg omg I think you’re right!! maybe they’re dating??
> 
> _EmilyJoyX19:_  I bet that’s why he made all those Hanukkah desserts the other week
> 
> _Rachelllllle72:_ I SHIP IT!! They would be soooo cute together!!

There were several more similar replies below that he skimmed through.

“Oh. Wow,” he remarked. “Crazy, maybe… At the very least, extremely observative.”

“Yeah. I didn’t realize we had such overlap in our subscribers.” She fidgeted with her glasses. “But umm… it made me realize we never exactly talked about whatever this is with us and—”

He placed a hand on her thigh. “Felicity.”

“I mean, we don’t have to put a label on it or anything I just—“

“Felicity,” he repeated, squeezing her thigh gently.

She looked over at him and met his eyes expectantly. “Yeah?”

“I want to be your boyfriend. If that’s okay with you?”

Her face lit up. “Oh.” She shifted into his lap and looped her arms around his neck. “That’s definitely okay with me. Because I want to be your girlfriend.”

Smiling, he dipped his head down to finally kiss her after weeks of wondering what it would be like.  _It was heavenly._ When her lips parted for him to deepen the kiss he discovered that she tasted like the chocolate filling she had been licking off the spatula while they were rolling up the loaf of chocolate babka that was currently in the oven.

Breaking apart to catch their breath, they rested their foreheads against each other’s and exchanged grins.

“That was—“

“Yeah,” he breathed out.

“You’re a really good kisser. I had a feeling you would be but it’s nice to—“ He started to bring his mouth to meet hers again but she pulled away abruptly as a yawn cracked across her face. “I’m so sorry. I think my early flight has finally caught up to me.”

The oven timer started to go off then, signaling that their dessert was ready. “Perfect timing for a bedtime snack.”

She hopped off of his lap, “You take care of that, I’m going to let the Menorah.”

From the kitchen he heard her begin to speak softly in Hebrew and after he pulled the babka out of the oven, he leaned against the counter to watch her carry out the rituals that she had explained to him earlier.

He never could’ve imagined when he had been researching traditional Hanukkah recipes in an effort to get her to take notice of him, that she would be celebrating the holiday in his living room. But somehow she had gone from the girl on the internet who he had a crush on because she helped him figure out his math homework to his girlfriend. It wasn’t exactly the most conventional way of meeting someone, but it had certainly worked out pretty well for them.

* * *

Staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep despite being exhausted from her long day, she finally rolled over and grabbed her phone. Her boyfriend was just outside the door from her, but she might as well have still been on the other side of the country.

 _Boyfriend._  Some random stranger on the internet had become her boyfriend thanks to polynomials and double fudge brownies. The thought brought a smile to her face as she selected his number on her phone.

Oliver’s brow was furrowed in confusion when he answered her FaceTime call, “What’s up?”

“You know… If I wanted to say goodnight to you over FaceTime, I would’ve stayed in Massachusetts for the holidays…”

“I—“ Realization flickered across his face. “Oh. You want me to—“

At her affirming nod, he hung up the call and, less than thirty seconds later, he was crawling into bed next to her.

“Better?” he asked, pulling her in close to him so she could use his chest as a pillow.

“Mhmm,” she muttered, closing her eyes with a content smile on her face. “Goodnight.”

He pressed a kiss into her hair. “Goodnight Felicity.”

“Okay so you’re just going to want to give it a little shimmy—“

“Like this?” She shimmied her hips, grinding against him and the hand that was covering hers on the pan handle tightened.

“—to loosen it, and then flip,” he finished, his voice only a little affected.

She pouted that she didn’t get more of a reaction out of him, but he was apparently very focused on helping her successfully make this omelette.

He guided her hands to help her execute the flip and pressed a kiss to her cheek before backing away to grab the cheese and vegetables he had chopped for her to fold inside.

“Nicely done,” he remarked, squeezing her shoulder once she had plated her omelette. “You’re not going to be able to call yourself a kitchen disaster anymore.”

Smiling proudly, she snapped a picture of her breakfast to send to Iris.

 **FELICITY:** 3 weeks at Oliver’s place and I think I’m becoming an iron chef??

 **IRIS:**  you’re not going to want to go back to Boston are you?

She had been putting off thinking about her visit having an ending, but December had turned into January and she wondered at what point she was overstaying her welcome. She had packed for a week and she was kind of getting tired of washing and wearing the same seven outfits—plus Oliver’s clothes, like the sweatpants she currently had on with the waistband rolled a couple of times. While she hesitated with what to answer, Iris sent another text.

 **IRIS:**  I kinda think I’m going to stay in Central City

Surprised, she tapped the screen to call her friend, “I thought you were already back in Boston. What happened to being back in time for that New Year’s Eve party?”

“Well, Barry told me he loves me and he misses me and it made me realize how much I had been missing him. And I’ve been doing a little job hunting and there’s an opening at CCPN, so… if you wanted to move to Star City to be with Oliver I would feel less guilty about leaving you roommate-less.”

“Uhhh….”

“But you’ve only been with him like a month and a half—and some of that time was only via the internet—so obviously no pressure to make this decision right now.”

She took a bite of her omelette before it got cold. “Iris, I can handle all of the rent on our apartment. If you want to stay in Central City you don’t need my approval.”

“But I don’t want you to be alone.”

She glanced over at Oliver who was making his own omelette and trying to act like he wasn’t listening in on her side of the conversation. She hadn’t exactly been looking forward to leaving. It wasn’t like her job kept her in one place, she had been doing her job the entire time she had been in Star City. And she had been spending time with her boyfriend without it having to involve FaceTime. Maybe it was the right time for a change of location.

“Don’t worry about me,” she reassured her.

* * *

“So…” Felicity trailed her fingers across his bare chest. She had dragged him into his bedroom before he had even finished his breakfast. Not that he was complaining. If she was going back to Massachusetts soon—and they hadn’t talked yet about when they might get to see each other again, he wanted to savor the time he had left before he couldn’t kiss her or touch her or run his fingers through her soft hair. “There’s nothing really keeping me in Massachusetts anymore, I just kind of stayed there after graduation and my roommate’s moving out on me, so I was thinking that maybe I could—“

“Move here?” he finished for her eagerly. He had just been hoping they could plan their next chance to see each other before she left, but if she was even considering moving—he wanted her to know he would be all for it. Having her around the past few weeks had been the best Christmas present he could’ve asked for and he didn’t want to let her go.

She laughed at the earnest expression on his face. “Uh yeah. I mean, long distance would kind of suck even more now that I’ve experienced…” She gestured between the two of them— tangled up together in his sheets. “The many perks of not being long distance.”

“I don’t want to go back to long distance,” he chimed in in agreement. “I like having you here.” He trailed his hand down her back, “In my timezone, in my kitchen cooking breakfast with me, in my shirts.”

“You have the _softest_ shirts, I totally would’ve stashed a few in my suitcase to take back to Massachusetts with me. I mean, I still have to go back to pack everything up… you want to take a trip to Boston?”

He was pretty sure he’d go anywhere with her.

“Sure. I’ve actually never been before.”

“Perfect, because I want to take you to this pizza place and see if you can figure out how to recreate their sauce.” She closed her eyes as a blissful smile curled up the corners of her mouth. “It is the best pizza I’ve ever tasted and I’m convinced it’s the sauce.”

His chest shook with a soft laugh, “I’m up for the challenge.”

* * *

**TWO YEARS LATER**

“Hey everybody, welcome to this week’s Cram Session. I hope all of you had a great break for the holidays and you’re feeling ready to get back to your studies.”

He stood in the kitchen and watched her start her livestream while he did some prep work for a video he was filming the next day. This week, he had a question for her.

A smile turned up the corners of his mouth as she started to walk someone through a math problem.

“Okay so the first step for factoring polynomials is identifying the greatest common factor, which in your case would be 2y…”

 _Factoring polynomials._ Those math problems were the reason the girl of his dreams was sitting on the floor of his—their living room, the reason there was a box in his pocket that his hand closed around nervously.

He listened to the rest of her livestream as he chopped and measured—he had finished his college classes and had no need for academic assistance anymore, but he still loved the way she lit up when she was answering questions and helping people conquer the problems they had been stuck on. She was amazing at making things seem so simple…. including the question of how he wanted to spend the rest of his life. He just hoped her answer was the same as his.

“Okay, I have time for one more question before I sign off.”

That was his cue.

Striding into the living room, he spoke up, “I have a question.”

She looked up at him in confusion before understanding began to dawn on her face the moment he knelt beside her and reached into his pocket.

“Are you—is this—“

Taking the box out of his pocket, he flipped it open to reveal the ring inside. “Felicity Megan Smoak—“ He turned towards her webcam, “I don’t know if she wanted her middle name to be broadcasted to the internet, my bad.” Returning his attention to Felicity, who had an amused expression on her face now, he continued, “Will you—“

She abruptly shut her laptop and launched herself at him, knocking him off balance and peppering his face with kisses as she repeated, “Yes, yes, yes.”

“You didn’t even let me finish asking my question,” he feigned exasperation, despite the elated expression on his face giving him away.

“Sorry,” she replied sheepishly. “I just didn’t have to think very hard about this particular answer.”

His grin widened.

She let him sit back up so that he could slide the ring on her finger before lifting her hand to his mouth to press a kiss to her knuckles.

“I love you,” he whispered.

She caressed his face, “Love you too.”

 **@BabblingBlonde:**   _to everyone who was still around at the end of Cram Session last night… obviously I said yes ;)_

* * *

 


	7. Dec 15/16

_1\. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9–_

“Overwatch?”

Felicity released the breath she had been holding in a relieved gasp.

She had grown used to more chatter on the comms, less silent pauses, when the team was around. She knew Oliver was capable of handling almost any situation on his own, it was just easier on her nerves when she knew he had four people backing him up. He came home with less bruises and cuts when he had four people backing him up. But just the two of them—that was their current reality and she needed to re-acclimate to it.

“Are you okay?” she asked, fiddling with her ring.

There was a brief pause before, “I’m fine.”

By now she was well aware that the Oliver Queen definition of “fine” was not the same as most human beings’ and she closed her eyes with a sigh.

It was Christmas Eve.

They were supposed to be home with William eating Big Belly Burger and watching Die Hard like they had originally planned. They were supposed to be making sure he had the best Christmas ever, because the first holiday after you lose someone is really hard. They had both lost enough people to know that all too well.

Instead they had lied to him about a last minute invitation to a Christmas party and left him with Thea because Black Siren couldn’t just let them have one night where she wasn’t interfering with their lives. She really hoped another opportunity presented itself for her to clock that psychotic bitch in the face.

“Are you coming back now?”

“Yes, honey.”

Oh he was definitely very  _not_  fine.

She took her glasses off and pressed the heels of her hands against her temples.

Merry- _freakin_ -Christmas.

When he pulled into the garage of the bunker, she was there to meet him and help him limp over to the medical station.

“How did you even manage to ride your motorcycle with your knee in this state?”

“It’s not that bad,” he insisted.

“You can barely walk!”

“Felicity…”

Once she helped ease him onto the table she took his hands in hers. “I’m sorry, I’m not mad at you. I shouldn’t be taking this out on you. You’re hurt and you need me to calm down so I can help you.” She caressed his jaw that was starting to bruise before grabbing the supplies she needed.

“It’s not any worse than it always is,” he assured her. “My knee. I’ll be fine.”

“So you’re not going to try and inject yourself with an entire bottle of pain meds?”

He huffed in amusement, “No.”

“Okay.” Handing him an ice pack for his face, she frowned. “What are we going to tell William?”

“That I got in a fight with a reporter who was harassing you?” She shot him a look and he shrugged. “I do have a reputation for throwing fists with members of the press.”

“That was one incident that happened over a decade ago.”

“Wow. I’m getting old.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll still find you attractive when you start going grey and need to borrow my glasses to read.” Her teasing smile faded and she sighed, “William’s smart, perceptive. I’m not sure he’s going to buy that cover story.”

Oliver winced when she helped him remove his jacket and the black t-shirt he wore underneath. “This is not how I wanted to be spending our first Christmas as a family.”

She glanced over at the clock which read 11:55pm.

“Well technically it’s not Christmas yet. Although I don’t think we’ll be getting home in the next five minutes.”

There were several darkening bruises littered across his abdomen and chest and she delicately kissed the marred skin. She knew she couldn’t erase all the physical trauma his body had experienced in the years since he washed up on the shores of Lian Yu, but she could make sure that he received as much touch as possible that wasn’t with the intent to inflict pain. She could make sure that he wasn’t starved of the affection she knew he so desperately craved by the way he responded to her.

One of the hardest things for her when they weren’t together had been seeing the state that he had returned from Adrian’s torture in—seeing him hurt like that and not being able to be the one to tend to his wounds before curling her body around his to make him feel safe when the nightmares inevitably came.

But now that he was her husband she never again would have to take a step back instead of taking care of him the way she wanted. The way that was just as therapeutic for her as it was for him because it allowed her to reassure herself that he was going to be okay, that she hadn’t lost him.

Taking his ring out of the little pocket that was stitched into his jacket in the place over his heart, she slid it back onto his finger and pressed a kiss to the smooth metal. “Tomorrow can still be a good day.”

“Yeah.” He smiled at her before looking down at his knee. “Will you help me get my pants off?”

“ _Geeze._  You could at least ask me to dinner first.”

He shook his head in amusement when she winked and reached for the zipper.

Once she had carefully peeled off the tight leather, she followed him over to the shower and shed her dress to join him. He stood still for her while she lathered him up with soap, being gentle with his bruised skin, before standing on her tiptoes to wash his hair. When she was finished he gathered her into his arms so she could feel his heart beating steadily, his chest rising and falling with every breath, as the water run over them, washing away the sweat and blood and grime.

* * *

It was a little after 1am when they quietly entered the apartment after making a pit stop through the drive through of Big Belly Burger. Thea was lying on the couch watching tv and she looked over to the door at the sound of their footsteps.

“Are you alright?” she asked, rising to her feet and walking over to gingerly touch Oliver’s bruised jaw.

“I’ll be okay. How’s William?”

“He wanted to stay up until you got back, but he didn’t quite make it.” Thea sighed, “Even though he didn’t say anything, I can read him well enough by now to know that he was pretty upset at the unexpected change of plans for the evening.”

Oliver’s shoulders slumped and Felicity rubbed his back soothingly. She knew her husband was going to be beating himself up over this, but he had already received enough of a beating that night. “Thanks for stepping in for us Thea.”

“Of course. I’ve got a lot of Aunt time to make up for after being in a coma for months.” Thea patted Oliver’s chest, “I don’t really want to sleep on the couch, but I’ll be back in the morning, okay?”

After she left, they peeked in on William’s room to confirm that he was fast asleep before retrieving the wrapped presents they had stashed in the back of their closet to arrange around the tree in their living room. She smiled at the ornaments that were hung at her eyeline, Oliver and Thea’s matching mitten ones next to the two new ones they had purchased that year with her and William’s names painted on.

After all the holidays she had spent alone or traumatized or some combination of both, having a family to share Hanukkah with that year had been perfect. And, even if their Christmas Eve plans had gone awry, she still wanted Christmas to be as perfect as possible for her boys. They deserved it after everything they had been through that year.

Oliver laid down on the floor and stared up at the ceiling. “We shouldn’t have gone out, we should’ve—“

“Let Black Siren run free to terrorize the city?” she finished for him, curling up next to him.

“I promised him I would be his dad.  _Just_  his dad.” His chest rose and fell with a heavy exhale. “And he had to spend Christmas Eve without us, while I was getting sonic blasted into a brick wall and might not have made it home in one piece to watch him open his presents.”

She nuzzled her face against his shoulder. “But you did make it home. And even though we can’t change the choice that we made tonight, we’re going to have all day tomorrow—although I guess it’s actually today, since it’s 1:36 in the morning—to spend as a family.”

He sat up abruptly. “Cinnamon rolls.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion. “What?”

“Laura Hoffman sent me a recipe for slow cooker cinnamon rolls. I was going to make them last night to have for breakfast this morning.”

Standing up, he extended a hand for her to help her to her feet. He tugged her towards the kitchen, still limping a little, and she sat at the counter while he pulled out the stand mixer to make dough.

“Are you planning on getting any sleep?” she asked, leaning her chin on her fist as she felt her eyelids starting to grow heavy.

He paused and looked up at her, “You don’t have to wait up for me if you’re tired.”

“I don’t want to go to bed without you.” She yawned. “How long is this going to take?”

“Do you want to help? It’ll make it go faster.”

“That’s risky. Are you sure you can trust me in your kitchen?”

“I trust you with my life.” He gestured for her to come around the counter and join him.

Making things go faster turned out to be him sitting her on the counter and stepping in between her legs to kiss her—his hands roaming up and down her sides, slipping underneath the bottom hem of her sweater to stroke her bare skin underneath—while they waited the ten minutes for the dough to quick rise.

“See,” he squeezed her thighs and pressed one last chaste kiss to her lips before reaching for the timer to shut it off. “You’re a great help in the kitchen.”

Laughing, she hopped down from the counter to actually help him by rolling out the dough. He stood behind her and guided her hands, creating a quiet moment of intimacy between them.

“I love you,” he whispered.

She tipped her head back to look up at him, “I love you too.”

Once they had the cinnamon rolls in the slow cooker and had it set to be ready at breakfast time, they finally made it to their room at 2:47am and collapsed into bed in the clothes they were wearing.

“I was that kid who was waking my parents up at five am so I could open my presents,” he muttered sleepily.

She closed her eyes. “So are you saying I should prepare myself for less than four hours of sleep before your mini-me is knocking on our door?”

When she was only met with incoherent mumbling for a response, she snuggled in closer to him before quickly falling asleep herself.

* * *

 

When Felicity rolled over the next morning the clock read 7:32 and she sat up quickly in surprise, eliciting a groan of protest from her husband. After his warning before they fell asleep, she had been expecting to be awoken by William a lot earlier.

“Oliver?” she nudged him gently. “Honey?”

He mumbled something indiscernible, his eyes still closed, and she started peppering his face with kisses. It was very rare that he slept this deeply, and normally she would just let him rest, but she had a feeling he wanted to be awake now.

“Mmmm.” The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile as he become conscious and he reached for her to pull her on top of him. “Good morning.”

“It’s 7:35.”

“Why is that relevant?” he asked, lifting the hem of her sweater and clearly intending to undress her. Which normally she would not have protested, but…

“It’s Christmas morning.”

“It’s Christmas morning,” he echoed. The moment his brain fully registered what that meant, he sat up abruptly, bringing her with him and wincing a little as he was reminded of his injuries from the night before. “William… we have to get up.”

She patted his chest, “Yeah.”

They lingered in bed a moment longer though, exchanging kisses before finally putting their feet on the floor. They were still wearing their clothes from the night before, so they changed into the holiday pajamas that her mom had sent them. Hers were light blue with little gold menorahs printed on them and Oliver and William had matching ones with a red and green Christmas tree print. A little tacky,  _maybe_ , but her mom was expecting a picture of them wearing them.

And also Oliver looked extremely adorable.

She rolled up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You’re earning major son-in-law points right now, you know that right?”

He just smiled down at her before they walked hand in hand out of their room to find William sitting on the floor in the hallway right outside their door.

Looking up from the book he was reading, he let out an exasperated sigh, “Finally.”

“How long have you been sitting out here?” she asked.

“Since like five. You told me we could get up early. I knocked a few times.”

Oliver crouched down to his level, “Buddy… you could’ve come in and woken us up.”

He shrugged. “I figured you were tired from being out late at the party—what happened to your face?”

_Oh frack._  They had forgotten to figure out exactly what explanation they were going to provide for the state that Oliver had returned from the “party” in.

“Uhh…”

“There was a mugger,” Felicity offered. She and Oliver were two of the worst people at coming up with cover stories, but she liked to think that she was at least slightly better than Mr.  _“My coffee shop is in a bad neighborhood”_  Queen. “Last night. Coming out of the party. But we’re uhh… we’re fine.”

He gave her a very skeptical look before returning his attention to his father, “You let a mugger actually get a punch in?”

“Well I couldn’t exactly go full Green Arrow on him, in case someone saw—“

“What if he had hurt Felicity?” William interrupted him, looking very distressed at the thought, and her heart twisted in her chest. The two of them had formed a special bond over the past few weeks. She knew she could never replace the mother he had lost, but she was trying her best to be whatever he needed from her. Just to have the opportunity to be a part of his life was a gift she never thought she would receive. “You would’ve just let that happen?”

“I—“ Oliver was silent for a moment, glanced up at her and then looking back to his son. “I wouldn’t have let that happen. I promise.”

“No one would’ve gotten hurt if you had just stayed home,” he muttered under his breath.

She placed a comforting hand on Oliver’s shoulder as he searched for the words to say to him. “I’m very sorry about last night.  _Trust me,_  I would’ve rather been here with you. Please—please let me make it up to you today.”

After a moment’s hesitation, William nodded. “Okay.”

They stood up and Oliver gathered William into his arms, trying his best not to wince and give away the extent of his injuries hidden beneath his pajamas, before releasing him so he could give her a hug.

In her bare feet her stepson was taller than her now, she couldn’t believe how much he had grown since Oliver brought him home to a Star City in the spring. She often teased Oliver that he was going to end up being taller than him by the time he could drive.

Making their way out into the living room, she and Oliver settled onto the couch to watch William open the mountain of presents around the tree. They might have gone a bit overboard with shopping for him, but she knew that, even if he didn’t realize what he was doing, her husband was trying to make up for all the Christmas mornings he had missed.

She had been spoiled too, for Hanukkah she had gotten presents and special dinners and homemade versions of all of her favorite treats. But her favorite memory was sharing the lighting of the menorah with William, who had been so eager to take part in the tradition.

Snuggling in closer to Oliver, she reached for his left hand to brush her thumb over the smooth metal band there that matched hers. She still had to remind herself sometimes that this was real. That after the long—and often heartbreaking—journey she and Oliver had been on over the past five years, they had made it to the place where they were spending the holidays together as a family.

William’s disposition had drastically brightened from the hallway and it was a relief to see the excited smile on his face as he tore into the wrapping paper. She hated having to lie to him, he deserved the truth from them, but she knew it would only have cast a dark shadow over the day if he had known what they were really up to the night before. It was his first Christmas without his mother, he shouldn’t be having to worry if he would be spending the next one without his father too.

Thea walked in just as William was finished opening his presents and he hopped up from the floor to give her a hug as she jokingly remarked, “Long time, no see.”

“Merry Christmas Aunt Thea.”

Her sister-in-law glanced over at the two of them on the couch then and started laughing, “I didn’t realize you all had these festive pajamas.”

“They’re from my mom. She’s gotten very into online shopping,” she explained. “Will you take a picture of us to send to her?”

“Yeah.” Thea gestured for William to join them on the couch and took a few pictures—including one that would eventually end up framed on her desk in her future office at Helix Dynamics. “Ask your mom what I have to do to get in on the matching family pajamas.”

Felicity huffed in amusement, tapping out a text for her mom to accompany the picture she had picked to send her, before they all moved over to the kitchen counter for breakfast.

“How’d they turn out?” she asked Oliver, coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist as he opened the slow cooker to check out the cinnamon rolls and coat them with a sugary glaze.

“They look good to me.” He lifted one out with his spatula, setting it on a plate, and she took a step back so that he could move away from the counter.

“Are those cinnamon rolls?” William asked.

“Yep. Felicity helped me make them.” She laughed at the horrified expression that flickered across her step-son’s face. The last time she had attempted to make breakfast for the two of them when Oliver had gone into City Hall early for a meeting… it had not exactly gone well. Her husband wrapped an arm around her waist and added, “She’s a great sous chef.”

“Don’t worry, all I did was roll out the dough,” she assured him. “But I volunteer as tribute to be the first taste-tester.”

Oliver pulled away a piece of the soft, fluffy dough to feed her. “Delicious,” she assessed, tugging him closer. “Kiss for the cook.”

Smiling, he licked the glaze off of her lips before slanting his mouth over hers.

“Try to remember you have an audience,” Thea piped up. “A hungry audience.”

They stepped apart so that Oliver could serve William and Thea their cinnamon rolls, who both gave them complimentary reviews.

Once they had finished eating and the kitchen was cleaned up they all gathered on the couch to watch Die Hard, since their plan to watch it the night before had fallen through.

“I don’t understand why we’re watching this, it’s not actually a Christmas movie,” Thea remarked.

“It’s a Christmas classic,” Oliver protested.

At one point during the movie she realized William’s face was buried in her shoulder and she squeezed Oliver’s hand.

“This might be a bit much for him,” she whispered.

“Tommy and I watched it for the first time when we were his age.”

She tilted her head at William curled up next to her and hiding his eyes. “You didn’t have PTSD when you were his age,” she muttered under her breath and Oliver grimaced.

“I didn’t even think…”

He paused the movie and William looked up, “What—“

“Do you want to watch something else?” he asked his son.

“This is your favorite movie.”

“But are you liking it?”

“I—“ William looked up at her and she gave him a reassuring smile. “I think I’d rather watch something else.”

“I have an idea.” She scooted off of the couch and went to grab something before returning to the living room. “Raisa gave me some video tapes she found of you two on Christmas mornings when you were little that she took from the mansion before everything was auctioned off. I finished converting them to digital files the other week, but after everything that’s been going on lately, I almost forgot about this.”

“No way,” Thea straightened up in her seat excitedly and gestured at the usb drive she was holding. “Those are our old home movies?”

“Yep. And spoiler alert: they’re adorable.”

“I’m going to get to see my grandparents?” William asked, perking up too. “I’ve always wondered what they were like, since I…. I never got to meet them.”

“They would’ve loved you,” Oliver remarked, reaching over to squeeze his son’s knee.

Once she got everything set up with the tv to start playing the files, she returned to her place on the couch. Since she had already watched them when she was converting them, she watched Oliver’s reactions instead as his parents appeared on the screen—Tommy too in some of the footage.

He pointed at the screen, at he and Tommy’s younger selves helping a little Thea open her presents, “We’re probably about William’s age there. Thank you, for doing this,” he muttered, kissing her neck. “I needed to see this after…”

She nodded in understanding without him having to say it aloud.

_After evil doppelgänger Tommy._

She threaded her fingers with his, “You’re welcome. Love you.”

Lifting their hands to his mouth, he brushed a kiss over her knuckles, “Love you.”

* * *

 


	8. Dec 17/18

Felicity wrapped her scarf tighter as the wind picked up to keep the cold air off of her neck when she walked out of the gas station with a cup of cheap coffee. It tasted vile, but the caffeine was necessary if she was going to stay alert enough to finish the remaining two and half hours of driving to get to her old friends’ house. The Diggles had invited her to spend the holidays with them, and since she hadn’t seen them in almost two years, she had accepted—forgetting that they lived in the absolute  _middle of nowhere_  and the drive was horrendous. Horrendous even when it wasn’t snowing.

She groaned in frustration as the light flurries turned almost instantaneously into larger flakes, and flicked on her high beams to navigate herself back onto the road she needed to be following after her detour for the coffee.

After forty-five minutes of creeping along the road at a glacial pace, she had to finally concede that it was unsafe for her to continue. Her car was a city car, not a backwoods in a blizzard car. Pulling over to the side of the road, she reached for her phone that was mounted on the dash to serve as her GPS and was about to call for help when she realized she had forgotten to plug it in and it was about three seconds from—

The screen went black and she dropped her head onto the steering wheel, hitting the horn and startling herself.

_No worries, just plug your phone back in and it’ll have enough charge to turn back on in no time._

She opened her console where she kept her car charger and found a lipstick, two tampons, a couple of her business cards, and… no car charger.

_What?_

She grabbed her purse and dug though it, dumping the contents on her lap.

_Frack. Frack. Frack._

How did she forget her car charger? How did she end up in this situation? How long did she have before her car ran itself out of gas and she froze to death?

She considered her options.

She could try and walk back to the gas station. Cracking the window, a gust of freezing wind blew in and she immediately rolled it back up, nixing that idea. She wouldn’t make it more than 100 yards in this weather, and she had no idea where she was.

She could wait for someone to come around and find her. When she didn’t show up at the Diggles by nightfall, surely John would come looking for her. But she was still a long way out from their house, and she might have ended up getting off course because of not being able to see very well in the snow. She had taken a turn a few miles back that she hadn’t been completely positive was down the right road since the GPS wasn’t the most accurate in the middle of nowhere.

“This is not how you’re going to die,” she muttered to herself, taking a sip of her now lukewarm coffee, cringing at the taste, and willing the caffeine to go directly to her brain and help her come up with a way out of her predicament.

She was picking at her chipping nail polish and brainstorming when she spotted what she thought were headlights out of the corner of her eye. Opening her door and getting a face full of snow, she climbed out of the car and waved her arms, hoping her raspberry colored coat would help her stand out in the swirling white flakes.

“Help!” she yelled, her voice sounding like it wasn’t making it farther than a foot in front of her. “Help.”

The truck that the headlights belonged to stopped and she breathed out a sigh of relief, her breath a white cloud in the cold. Someone climbed out and lumbered towards her.

“Oh thank God. The storm came on so fast and my car just couldn’t handle these roads in this weather and my phone died and I somehow forgot my charger, even though I’m always careful to double check that I have all of my electronics and chargers when I’m packing, and I thought I was going to freeze to death out here—“

When the person got close enough for her to make out his face, her words died on her lips and freezing to death suddenly didn’t sound so awful.

“Felicity?”

“Oliver,” she croaked.

* * *

“Why are you here?” he finally asked after they had loaded her stuff into his truck and she took her seat beside him in the passenger seat.

She kept her gaze forward, avoiding his eyes. “I was on my way to John and Lyla’s. The storm came on fast. Can you just… can you take me there?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

She gripped the edge of her seat.  _“Why not?”_

“This storm is only supposed to get worse—their house it still at least two hours away. And that’s driving at normal speed, which I can’t because of the conditions of the roads.” He sighed in exasperation. “I’m not going to get us both killed. I’m not taking you there.”

“So where are we going then?”

“I’ve been staying at a cabin right down the road for the past few days. I ran out for some groceries to stock up before the storm and was on my way back when I saw you and stopped. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Thank you,” she replied, not bothering to disguise the annoyance in her tone.

“Would you have preferred that I left you there?”

She looked out her window and muttered under her breath, “If my other option is shacking up with you for the night…”

A few minutes later they arrived at Oliver’s cabin and they didn’t speak as he parked the truck and grabbed his bag of groceries and her suitcase to carry inside. She hesitated for a moment before following after him with her purse and the cup of gas station coffee that was just cold dregs at that point.

This was the absolute last way she wanted to be spending the holidays.

_Absolute last._

Walking through the door she ran straight into Oliver, who was standing in the entryway in the dark.

“Ooof,” she staggered backwards. “What are you doing? Turn on the lights.”

He reached over and flicked the switch. And flicked it again. And flicked it again and again and again for the sake of making a point.

“Oh you have got to be kidding me,” she whined. She honestly didn’t think this day could get any worse, but it seemed that every time she had that thought, she was proved wrong. “I’m still going to freeze to death and I’m going to be stuck with you while it happens.”

She didn’t need to be able to see him to know he was rolling his eyes. “You’re not going to freeze to death.”

“Is there a backup generator?”

“Not that I know of. It’s not that fancy of a cabin.”

He turned on the flashlight on his phone to illuminate his way and walked over to a fireplace. It didn’t take him long to get a fire going and she tentatively shuffled over to stand next to him in front of it.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“No.” He started to walk away and she grumbled, “Okay, yes.”

She plopped down on the floor and he returned a few minutes later with a bowl of Lucky Charms.

Stirring her spoon around in the bowl, she whispered, “My favorite.”

“I know.”

He sat down next to her and she stood up abruptly to go sit on one of the couches. It was colder away from the fire, and a shiver shook her body, but she didn’t want to be near him. Didn’t want him to give her bowls of her favorite cereal.

“Are we going to spend the whole night not talking to each other?” Oliver asked.

She took a bite of cereal and mumbled, “That would be my preference.”

While she ate, the room grew colder as more heat had seeped out of the house and she pulled her coat tightly around her to try and stave off the chill that was causing goosebumps to break out over her skin.

Oliver had left the room at one point and when she was finished with her cereal he came back and announced that he had called Diggle and they had power at their house. As soon as the storm cleared they would come down for them on the snow mobiles—hopefully tomorrow morning.

Shifting on the couch to lie down, she sent up a silent prayer that she would fall asleep quickly and be put out of her misery.

But instead she just shivered. And shivered. And shivered.

“Will you stop being so stubborn and come over here so you don’t freeze to death?” Oliver’s voice carried over to her with a heavy overtone of irritation.

“I’m not cold.”

_I’m frigid and grumpy._

“Okay fine then. You’re not cold. Stay on the couch.”

She counted to one hundred and forty three in her head before she couldn’t take it any longer and she very reluctantly put her feet on the ground.

Oliver was lying down on the floor next to the fire and he scooted over to make space for her close to the warmth.

“Don’t touch me,” she cautioned as she settled down beside him.

He crossed his arms over his chest, “Wasn’t planning on it.”

Even with the fire next to her, she wasn’t warming up as quickly as she wished. The cold air in the room seemed to be sucking up all the heat before her body could absorb it. She felt herself inching closer and closer to his emanating body heat, despite all of her intentions to keep her distance.

“Do you need something?” he asked.

“What?”

“You’re almost on top of me,” he bit out.

She shifted away quickly. “I am not.”

“Do you have something warmer to wear in your suitcase?”

“Warmer than my coat? No.”

He sighed, “Do you need a blanket?”

“Yes.” When he didn’t move, she added, “Please.”

He stood up and she watched him walk away before closing her eyes and letting out a long exhale.

She didn’t want to be spending the night in a cabin without power in the middle of a blizzard and she  _most certainly_  didn’t want to be lying on the floor of said cabin with the husband she hadn’t seen in almost two years.

* * *

He stood in the bedroom for a second with a quilt in his hand and braced himself to go back out there. Go back out to his  _wife._  His very grumpy wife who clearly wasn’t happy to be in his presence again. He hated himself for not being able to convince himself that he was just as unhappy as she was that she was stuck with him for the night. But underneath his irritation with her, what was left of his broken heart was practically doing cartwheels. He had missed her  _so much_ , and he figured he could put up with her grumbling at him the entire time if it meant he got to spend a few hours with her.

Maybe there was a reason their paths had unexpectedly crossed. Maybe before morning came he would work up the courage to not just bicker with her, but actually talk to her. Make her talk to him.

Or maybe it was too late for talking. They might not have signed official divorce papers yet, but, if it hadn’t been when she walked out on him, it was painfully clear now that she didn’t want him to consider her his wife anymore.

Returning to the main room, he walked over to the fireplace where she was curled up on the floor and settled the quilt over her shivering body.

“Better?” he inquired.

“Yeah.”

After adding another log to the fire, he laid back down next to her—resisting the urge to pull her in close to him and surround her with his body heat, and instead leaving a generous amount of space between them.

Despite her fears, the temperatures inside the cabin weren’t low enough for anyone to actually be freezing to death, but she had always gotten cold easily. He used to complain about her icy feet pressing against his bare legs in bed.

He would gladly put up with that infinitesimally minor annoyance just to be sleeping in the same bed with her again. Just to be the one she sought out for warmth again.

They laid in silence for a few minutes, and he thought that maybe she had fallen asleep, when she spoke up, “Do you want to share? The quilt.”

“I don’t get cold.”

He voice was barely a whisper when she responded with, “Oliver…. this is me asking you to move in closer without actually asking that. I’m cold.”

_Oh._

Lifting the edge of the quilt he slid underneath and she scooted back a little to close some of the distance between them. With the fire on one side of her and him on the other, creating a shield against the cold of the room, she would hopefully be warm enough to sleep.

“This is purely for survival. In the morning we’re going to pretend this never happened. Understood?”

He huffed in exasperation, “Yes, honey.”

She stiffened, but didn’t say anything in response to his accidental slip—eventually relaxing flush against him, and he bit the inside of his lip to stifle a moan at how good it felt. He wanted to bury his face in the crook of her neck, leave a few kisses along the shell of her ear, but he knew that would be taking things too far.

Which was why his eyes blew wide in surprise when she rolled over and nuzzled her face into his chest.

“Uhh…”

“Purely for survival,” she mumbled.

He wrapped an arm around her and when she looked up at him with a glare, he smirked, “Purely for survival.”

She held his stare silently for a second before closing her eyes, “I don’t want to do this with you.”

“What are we doing? I thought we were just trying not to freeze to death?”

Her eyes reopened, flashing angrily in the dim light from the fire. “You said that wasn’t going to happen!”

“It’s not!” he practically growled, his irritation towards her and her miserable attitude boiling over.

_She_  had left him.

_She_ had walked out on him with no explanation.

_She_ —

He felt like the wind was knocked out of him.

She was  _kissing_  him.

* * *

She wasn’t entirely sure what happened. Wasn’t entirely sure what her thought process was that led to her kissing him.

_There was no thought process. No thoughts. You weren’t thinking._

But  _oh wow_  did it feel good to be kissing him again. And she _had_  made it clear that in the morning they were going to be forgetting whatever happened while they were just trying to stay warm, so she might as well take advantage of those pre-established terms and conditions.

He rolled on top of her and, needless to say, she wasn’t cold anymore.

“Felicity…” he breathed out, hot air tickling her face.

_“Nope.”_ She shook her head. “Don’t talk to me. This is—“

“Purely for survival. Got it.” He dipped his head back down to resume kissing her, their hips rocking against each other.

Their bodies were still so in tune with each other and, even though she knew this was a terrible idea, she just couldn’t stop. She needed him badly and currently there were too many layers between them keeping her from feeling his skin.

Reaching up for the zipper of his coat, she started to tug it down.

“Do you want me to freeze to death?”

“You don’t get cold.”

He sat up and unzipped his coat before settling back down on her, moving her scarf aside so he could kiss her neck, and she slipped her hands underneath his sweater to feel his warm skin.

He hissed, “Your hands are like ice.”

“And you’re thawing them.” She nipped at his bottom lip. “So thanks.”

Sliding her hands up his chest, she paused when she felt something metallic. Something that felt like something she had held in her hands before. She drew her hands out from under his sweater and wrapped them around the back of his neck to dip her fingers under his collar and feel for the chain—pulling it out from underneath the fabric.

When he realized what she was doing, he froze.

“Felicity…”

“You still—Why—?” She clutched the ring in her hand before releasing it, and squeezed her eyes shut. “I think that we should stop doing…. this.  _Please._ Please stop touching me.”

He rolled off of her and a chill swept through her at the loss of his body heat. They were both still breathing heavily and the sound echoed loudly in the quiet room.

“I still have my ring because, as far as I’m concerned, we’re still married,” he finally said in a low voice.

“The last time we saw each other was almost two years ago—“

_“When you left._ You do remember that’s what happened, right? So I understand why you’re not happy to be here with me now, but try not to act like I’m the one who hurt you when that was not what happened.”

“If it hurt when I left, why did you let me go?” she muttered under her breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She turned away from him. “I’m going to sleep.”

“No. Felicity—please talk to me. What did you mean by that?”

She couldn’t look at him so she just shouted into the burning embers. “You didn’t fight for me! You just—you just let me leave. So I didn’t think you cared enough about me to even bother to me miss me. I thought you were glad I left.”

Saying it aloud sounded so childish, but she had only been trying to get his attention. Show him she needed more from their marriage than the passiveness they had slipped into. They had both gotten so busy with their careers—him leading his family’s company into a new era and her tech start-up taking off—that they had stopped having actual conversations, stopped going on dates, stopped acting like anything more than really friendly roommates. She had missed her husband and she thought maybe, if she left, he would miss her and would chase after her and then things would be different.

At some point she had given up on the romantic gesture she had envisioned and started waiting for divorce papers to arrive on her doorstep. She figured he had moved on and anger towards him took root in her heart. Seeing him still wearing his wedding ring over his heart had shattered her assumptions, her resolve to be mad at him.

Now she was just confused and so very cold.

“I didn’t leave because I didn’t love you, I left because I wanted—“ She blinked back tears but they fell down her cheeks anyway as she whispered faintly, “I just wanted to know that you still loved me.”

“So let me get this straight, you walked out on our marriage—leaving me to wonder if maybe you had been cheating on me and you finally chose the other guy over me—but everything’s my fault because I’m not a mind reader. Great. Thanks for clearing that up. Goodnight.”

“Oliver…”

After counting to one hundred and twenty-nine there was still no response and she glanced over her shoulder to see him facing away from her.

“Goodnight,” she whispered, draping the edge of the quilt over him before closing her eyes and trying to fall asleep.

* * *

He woke up before her to a fire that had burned down to coals and a very cold room. Leaning over, he was relieved to see that she was still breathing. He might be angry with her, but he hadn’t wished for her to end up actually freezing to death.

When he got out from underneath the quilt they had shared and stood up, he tucked the edges around her to trap more heat in while he added a new log to the fire.

He had hoped she would talk to him, but what she had to say had been the last thing he had expected. He didn’t know what to think—what to do.

Walking away from her, he grabbed his phone and called John to check in on the likelihood of their rescue occurring soon.

After he hung up, he heard footsteps approaching him from behind.

“So… last night—“

“Was purely for survival,” he finished, turning around to face her. “I know. You made it pretty clear that we were going to act like none of it happened.”

Shaking her head, she dipped her fingers under the collar of her sweater to pull out a delicate chain—a chain that her engagement ring and wedding band hung from—and his chest tightened.

“I never cheated on you. I promise, there was never another guy. It was always you.” She fiddled with the rings and his eyes were magnetized to them. “I think it was easier to be mad at you for not following me out the door than to feel guilty for walking out in the first place. I didn’t want to own up to the role I played in our marriage getting to the point it did. I blamed you for giving up on us, but I gave up too. I should’ve come back to you a long time ago. I’m so, so sorry. Please—” She looked up and waited for him to meet her eyes, “Please tell me it’s not too late. I want _us_  to survive.”

Tears were sliding down her face, following tracks in her makeup that gave away that she had been crying the night before, and he reached out to brush them away. The snark she had worn as a mask was gone now. Despite the fact that she had hurt him, his heart still belonged to her and he wasn’t going to make her beg for him to love her again when he had never stopped. He just wanted to be her husband again—a better husband. Wanted her to press her cold feet against his bare legs when they climbed into bed together at night.

“I’m sorry too. For ever making you doubt my love for you.” He dipped his head to rest his forehead on hers and brought his hands up to caress her face. “I wish you would’ve just talked to me. I love you,  _so much_. And I’m going to fight for us to survive because the last two years without you have been horrible—even with you being all grumpy I was still so happy to be stuck here with you—I can’t lose you again.”

She wrapped her hands around his wrists and a small smile turned up the corners of her mouth. “Who needs expensive couples therapy when you can just get stuck in a blizzard?”

He huffed in amusement before angling her head to slant his mouth over hers for a kiss. When they broke apart she reached for the chain around his neck that held his wedding band and unfastened it to slide the ring off.

“Give me your hand,” she directed and he extended his left hand to her so she could slip the ring back on his finger. “Better?”

“So much better.” His hand had felt naked without it. He took her rings off the chain she wore next and slid them back on her finger. “Better?”

She beamed at him. “Yeah.”

“So,  _Mrs. Queen,_ will you go on a date with me? We’ve got a lot of catching up to do…”

She quirked an eyebrow, “When exactly did you have in mind? We’re snowed into a cabin with no power for an undetermined amount of time.”

“Not undetermined. John said he’d be down with the snowmobiles by noon. Which means we’re going to have to make this a breakfast date.” He tugged at her hand to lead her over to the fire and gestured for her to sit down on the floor in front of the hearth. “I’ll be right back.”

Returning a few minutes later with two bowls of Lucky Charms, he sat down cross-legged across from her, their knees touching.

He handed her one of the bowls. “It’s not a five star restaurant, but—“

“It’s perfect,” she interrupted him. “Well, I’m a little cold, but other than that, it’s perfect. And maybe after we eat—and talk, because we definitely need to talk—but maybe then you can help warm me up….”

“I think that can be arranged.”


	9. Dec 19-22

“I have to do  _what?”_ Oliver asked, straightening up in his seat in disbelief at what he thought he had just heard.

“Volunteer as Santa in the children’s wing of Starling General this month,” his mother repeated, her voice tired.

“Can’t you just write a check to the hospital instead?”

“Oliver. This is not about the hospital. This is about you peeing on a cop.”

“I was drunk.”

“And that’s supposed to make it better,  _how?”_  Moira took a deep breath to resettle herself. “It’s time you learned the world doesn’t revolve around you. Your father and I pulled some strings to make sure that this incident doesn’t go on record in exchange for you doing community service. I think the opportunity at the hospital will be perfect for you.”

By her facial expression, he could tell his mom was dead serious, but he still attempted one last ditch effort.

He stretched out on the couch nonchalantly. “I don’t have the body for Santa.”

“I don’t care.”

_Okay. So that’s that._

* * *

“Cute scrubs Smoak.”

Felicity looked up from her chart at one of her fellow nurses and smiled. “Thank you. I got my mom into online shopping and these showed up on my doorstep the other day as an early Hanukkah present.”

Making her way down the hall towards the room that belonged to her first patient of the day, she overheard snippets of gossip among the nurses.

_“Did you hear who’s Santa this year?”_

_“No, who?”_

_“Oliver. Queen.”_

_“What? Like Oliver Queen, Oliver Queen?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“I’d sit on his lap.”_

_“Mhmm.”_

_“Me too girl.”_

She rolled her eyes and entered her patient’s room.

“Good morning Natalie,” she greeted the little girl who was propped in her bed, her parents sitting beside her with dark circles rimming their eyes. She had come in late last night with a bad case of pneumonia. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“A little better.”

She took her temperature and was relieved to see that the fever she had come in with had broken. Listening to her breathing next, she wrote a few notes on her chart.

“Well Natalie, your doctor will be in to see you soon, but my guess is you’ll get to go home today. And your medicine should have you breathing normally again in no time.”

“In time for my recital?”

“When’s your recital?”

“Friday. We’re doing the Nutcracker, and I’m Clara.”

“Wow! That’s an important part.” She patted her knee, “I think as long as you do everything the doctor tells you to, you should be good to go.”

Natalie beamed and she grabbed her chart to leave the room. Out in the hallway, she got her first glimpse at their Santa for the year.

She knew who Oliver Queen was. It was impossible to live in Starling and not know who Oliver Queen was. Trust fund baby, human disaster, and some other less tasteful monikers she would keep to herself. She was pretty sure she had caught on the news that he had peed on a cop the week before. And though she didn’t even celebrate Christmas, she was pretty sure he was not the right choice to be Santa and bring holiday cheer to sick kids.

She didn’t know why someone so obviously self-absorbed would volunteer for the role in the first place—which meant he probably wasn’t doing it by choice. The kids deserved better. They deserved someone who actually cared about them.

“You don’t have the body to be Santa,” she muttered under her breath as she walked past.

“I tried to tell them that.”

Pivoting back around at the realization he’d heard her, she blushed as she added, “Not that I was noticing your body. Because I was not.”

Even with the stupid fake beard she could see him smirking. “Thanks for clearing that up. And Merry Christmas.”

She gestured to her menorah printed scrub top, “Uh yeah…  _very_  obviously Jewish.”

“Sorry,” he tipped his head in apology. “Happy Hanukkah.”

Shaking her head, she continued to walk down the hallway to her next patient.

“Hi Theo,” she greeted him as she walked into the room. “It looks like you’re going to be seeing Dr. Snow for some tests today—“

“Are you an angel?” the little boy asked, looking up at her with big brown eyes and eliciting a laugh from his mother.

“She’s a nurse sweetheart.”

“And nurses are angels in disguise,” Caitlin remarked with a wink, entering the room and catching their conversation.

Caitlin was one of her favorite doctors to work with because she was usually given the weird cases, the mysteries. It was satisfying to be a part of solving them.

She assisted on Theo’s case for the rest of the morning, since Caitlin had ordered a bunch of various tests after her meeting with him, before taking a late lunch break… where she had her second encounter with Oliver.

He sat down at the seat across from her and she quirked an eyebrow at him. “Maybe that seat was taken…”

“No one was sitting here, you just don’t want to eat with me,” he challenged, pulling his fake beard down to eat a slice of pizza. “Which is exactly why I’m sitting with you.” When her face wrinkled up in confusion, he added, “I promised my mom I wouldn’t get into any trouble while I was doing this. The nurses who have been following me around all day and invited with me to sit with them…” He glanced over at a table that was occupied by some of the nurses she had overheard talking about him earlier. She noticed they were eyeing her up curiously and she sighed in exasperation as he continued talking. “Yeah that just seems like  _trouble waiting to happen._ So I’m sitting with you. Because you’re not my type.”

“Uhh…”

She couldn’t decide if she should be insulted or grateful. 

“Well that’s not entirely true,” he amended. “But, despite the fact that you were checking me out this morning, you don’t seem like the type who would drag me into a supply closet.”

“I was not checking you out. You’re wearing a Santa suit, you look ridiculous. So yeah, I will definitely not be dragging you anywhere.”

“Is that a promise?”

“That’s a promise.” She took a sip of her water. “So… why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Being Santa. I didn’t think the children’s wing of Starling General was your kind of scene.”

“It’s not. I would never in a million years be here if my parents weren’t trying to teach me a lesson.”

“What kind of lesson?”

He shrugged, “Don’t pee on cops unless you want to get stuck doing community service?”

“Well you could be picking up trash in the park, so as far as punishments go—“ Her annoyance with him suddenly escalated. She couldn’t stand people like him. People who had no idea what real hardship was. She shook her head emphatically, “Actually,  _no_ , this is not a punishment. This is a  _privilege._ These kids are stuck in a hospital for the holidays and you get a chance to make things not suck so much. So maybe you could adjust your attitude a little bit.”

“I—“

Standing up abruptly, she didn’t let him finish his sentence before she took her trash and stalked off.

By the time she arrived at her next patient’s room, she had put Oliver out of her mind so she could focus on administering medication without fuming. He wasn’t her responsibility, the only thing she could control was how she interacted with her patients and tried to make their day better.

“Is it true that Santa will come visit us here Felicity?” the little girl, Amy, who had been in the hospital for a few weeks already awaiting a heart transplant, asked.

“Do you really want to see Santa?”

_Because you’re probably going to be disappointed._

“Yeah! I have to tell him what I want for Christmas.  _It’s really important.”_

She stifled a sigh of resignation, “Okay. I will put in a word with Santa so he makes a stop here today.”

“Yay!” Amy bounced excitedly in her bed and she placed a hand on her shoulder to calm her so she didn’t set her heart rate monitor off.

Once she had finished everything she needed to do for her, she went out in search of Oliver. Finding him on the floor below her, she approached him resolutely.

“You coming to yell at me again?”

“No. One of my patients has requested a visit from you. This is your chance to prove to me you’re not the complete asshole I think you are, and then I might consider letting you sit with me at lunch again tomorrow to protect you from the vultures.”

“I didn’t need your permission today, I just sat down and—“

He shut up when she leveled him with a glare.

“Follow me. Let’s see you in action Mr. Claus.”

“Her name is Amy,” Felicity whispered before they entered the room. She hung back in the doorway, pretending to be checking the girl’s chart while she watched Oliver approach the bed.

“Hi Amy–”

“I thought you were fatter,” Amy deadpanned, and Felicity lifted her chart to hide the amused expression on her face.

“I started doing Crossfit to keep up with all the cookies,” Oliver returned without skipping a beat.

“Oh!” Amy perked up. “My mom does that too. She’s really strong.”

Amy’s mom was sitting in the corner of the room and Felicity heard her laugh softly.

“So… Amy, I heard you have a special request for what you want for Christmas….”

“Yeah,” the little girl sighed. “A new heart.” Felicity couldn’t see his face well because of that stupid beard, but she noticed Oliver’s body language shift as she continued speaking. “Mine is broken and the doctor keeps telling me that they’ll find a new one for me soon, but I’ve been here for a long time now and I really want to go home. So I was hoping that maybe you could bring me a new heart for Christmas?”

“I…” Oliver glanced over at her with uncertainty swimming in his eyes and she just gave him a sad shrug.

_Welcome to my world._

“I know it’s not a toy,” Amy continued. “But it’s all I really want.”

“And you’ve been good all year?” Oliver asked.

“I’ve been stuck in this hospital for weeks, how much trouble could I possibly get into?” she sassed him, bringing the smile back to his face.

“Oh I don’t know, I hear some of the nurses around here are real troublemakers.”

Felicity shot him a glare and he just winked at her.

“I _promise_  I’ve been good.  _Please_ Santa.”

“Well we don’t exactly make new hearts at the North Pole…” At Amy’s dejected expression, he added, “But I’ll see what I can do.”

She reached out to pat his arm, “Thanks Santa.”

“Merry Christmas Amy.”

Felicity could tell he was trying to make it look like he wasn’t making a beeline for the door but he exited the room pretty quickly. Following him out, he waited until they weren’t in earshot of the room before turning to face her.

“There has to be something I can do for her, right? My parents… they have connections, money,  _what can I do for her?”_

“Oliver.” She reached out to lightly touch his forearm, hoping to calm him. “There’s nothing that you can do. She needs a heart transplant. There’s protocol that has to be followed for transplants and no way around it.”

He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes and muttered, “How do you do this?”

“Do what?”

“Be around this all the time? She… she’s not much younger than my sister and she’s going to die if she doesn’t get a heart soon, isn’t she?”

The look on her face must’ve told him everything he needed to know.

When his shoulders slumped and a crestfallen expression passed over his face, her instincts kicked in and she wrapped her arms around him in a tentatively awkward hug. She really hated that fake beard that was currently tickling her face.

“What are you doing?” he inquired, and she released him before taking a big step backwards.

“Sorry. Force of habit. I have to go… check on a patient.”

“See you at lunch tomorrow,” he called after her as she hurried down the hallway.

* * *

Felicity didn’t see Oliver all morning the next day but he must’ve somehow sensed that she was eating because within two minutes of her sitting down with her lunch, he was taking the seat across from her.

“Hey Felicity.”

“How do you know my name?”

He pointed at the badge she wore with her hospital ID. “Since you never bothered to introduce yourself yesterday, I had to be a detective.”

“You never exactly introduced yourself either,” she pointed out.

“I peed on a cop and it was all over the news, I didn’t think an introduction was necessary unless you lived under a rock.”

“Touche.” She took a bit of her burger before asking, “How did Santa duty go this morning?”

With his fake beard pulled down she could see plainly on his face that it had been hard on him. Maybe he was actually capable of caring about people other than himself and Amy wasn’t just an anomaly because she reminded him of his little sister.

“It’s not fair. These kids… they don’t deserve to be spending the holidays in a hospital bed.”

“I know. But it’s just reality for them. All we can do is try and–”

“Make things not suck so much?” he finished. “I was listening to you when you were yelling at me yesterday. But you should probably not do that again because it definitely made me more attracted to you and our arrangement only works if I don’t want to hook up with you in a supply closet.”

And just like that he was grating her nerves again.

“You are  _literally_  the worst person we’ve ever had as Santa. And last year we had a guy who thought he was more qualified than the doctors because of his extensive reading of the prestigious medical journal, WebMD, and told our patients all kinds of crap.” She stood up to leave, not caring that this was the second day in a row that she wasn’t going to be finishing her lunch. “You’re worse than him,” she repeated with emphasis.  

Leaving the cafeteria she made her way to Theo’s room, the four-year-old who had been admitted yesterday and thought she looked like an angel. Caitlin wanted her to be there when she went over the results of the tests with his parents since she had spent several hours with the family yesterday and would be a comforting presence. She really liked Theo, he was a sweet little boy who had talked to her non-stop while she ushered him all around the hospital the day before.

Entering the room, she sent up a silent prayer that Caitlin would have good news for the family.

“Felicity,” Theo perked up when he spotted her, reaching out a small hand that she took in her own when she reached his bedside.

The crinkle that appeared momentarily between her friend’s eyebrows when she glanced over at her worried her.

Caitlin took a deep breath before announcing her diagnosis, “Theo has stage L2 Neuroblastoma.”

She felt like someone had punched her in the gut. Closing her eyes, she drew in a long steady inhale to regather herself and held Theo’s hand securely.

“What does that mean?” Theo’s mom asked.

“Neuroblastoma is a rare cancer found in children. In Theo’s case, it hasn’t spread yet, but I can’t safely surgically remove the tumor. I’m going to recommend aggressive chemotherapy coupled with a stem cell transplant.”

Theo tugged on her hand and she looked down at him looking up at her curiously, “What does that mean?”

“Well buddy, we know now why you haven’t been feeling so well, and Dr. Snow is going to do everything she can to make you feel better.”

“Then why do you look so sad?”

“I–” She forced a smile to her face. “I’m not sad.”

To her relief, Caitlin took back over, “Since you’re going to be staying at the hospital for a while, we’re going to move you to a special room. Felicity, could you please go get a room in order for Theo.”

Nodding mutely, she squeezed Theo’s hand before darting out of the room while Caitlin continued to talk to the parents.

She made it to an empty hallway before the tears she had been holding back started to run down her cheeks. Neuroblastoma was  _not_  good news. The fact that his hadn’t spread yet was slightly reassuring, but the chemo was going to be hell for him and she had spent enough time around the hospital to know that even the best treatment plans could fail.

Sliding down on the wall to sit on the floor, she rested her face in her hands as she attempted to calm herself down. This was exactly why they weren’t supposed to form emotional attachments to patients, but it was too hard for her not to–especially since she worked with children.

She didn’t notice that she had company until he was wrapping an arm around her and tucking her into his side.

“What happened?” he asked after giving her a few moments of silence to cry.

Looking up at him, she sniffled, “I can’t take you seriously with that beard on.” When he removed it, she continued, “One of my patients got a pretty serious diagnosis. You asked yesterday how I’m around this all the time and honestly… I don’t know. Because it’s really, really hard.”

She forgot how much he irked her for a second and leaned back into him. His chest was really solid and comforting.

“I think you’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.”

“I’m crying on the floor right now,” she muttered.

“But you’re going to pull yourself together in a couple of seconds and go back to work. Yesterday… after Amy. I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t go in anyone else’s room. I left.”

“But you came back today.”

“Yeah, well I figured if I didn’t show up today you’d miss me. That and I’m legally required to be here. I just don’t like feeling helpless,” he admitted. “You’re at least taking care of them, I’m just… a temporary distraction.”

“A temporary distraction that means a lot to kids who are stuck in a hospital for Christmas. You’re not doing nothing.” She untangled herself from him and rose to her feet, wiping her tears with the back of her hand.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked, standing up too and looking at her with genuine concern in his eyes.  

“Yeah,” she nodded. Turning to leave him, she added over her shoulder, “See you at lunch tomorrow.”

A smile spread across his face, “See you then.”

“Okay so, I have a plan that I need your help with executing,” Oliver announced, sliding into his seat across from her a few days before Christmas.

“I’m mildly terrified.”

“Don’t be, it’s going to be great.” She raised a skeptical eyebrow and he continued, “So I have a really good memory. Like pretty much the only way I made it through high school is because—well my parents wrote a check to the school, but also I remember stuff really easily.”

“Mhmm.”

She had not the faintest clue where he was going with this.

“So… I’ve remembered everything that the kids who are going to be stuck here for Christmas have told me they want, and we are going to make it happen.”

She pointed a french fry at him, “I have some concerns about your use of the word ‘we.’”

“You have badge access to the hospital and I need…” He tilted his head thoughtfully, “…an elf.”

She scrunched up her face in distaste at the image that came to her mind. “Are you going to make me wear a costume?”

_“Would_ you wear a costume?”

She shot him a look, “Absolutely not.”

“Fine. So since you don’t celebrate Christmas and you don’t seem to have much of a social life—“

“I have a social life,” she muttered.

Ignoring her, he continued, “—you won’t have anything to do on Christmas Eve and you can meet me to help drop off the presents in their rooms while they’re sleeping.”

“You’re really going to get presents for all the kids in the long term care wing?”

By her estimate, it had to be around thirty kids who couldn’t be discharged for Christmas. The hospital staff did their best to make the day seem special for them, but surprise gifts showing up in their rooms from Santa would be a big hit. She had already heard from a lot of parents that, between the time and expense of their children’s medical care, they were struggling to figure out how to put presents under the tree that year. The fact that he had come up with the idea all on his own—to go way above and beyond what he was required to do—made it seem like he no longer saw his predicament as a punishment, like maybe she had gotten through to him.

“Yeah. You want to go shopping with me too? And maybe we could get dinner…” he dropped his gaze to his tray of food.

_“Santa…_ are you asking me out on a date?” she asked teasingly.

“No,” his eyes snapped back up to hers and she wasn’t sure why she felt a pang of disappointment. It was only recently that she was able to even consider his presence tolerable, she certainly didn’t like him… like that. “I’m bribing you with food so that you’ll help me because you’re my only friend here.”

“Right, because I’m the nurse that won’t get you in trouble… but you’re basically asking me to help you sneak around the hospital at night, which I think qualifies as trouble.”

“Trouble for a good cause,” he amended with a conspiratorial grin. “So you in?”

She chewed on her straw for a second, considering her answer, before responding, “Sure.”

“Perfect, what time do you work until tonight?”

“Six.”

“And we can go out after that?”

“Yes, since I have no social life, I am free to go out with you tonight.”

_On a not date._

“You make it sound so depressing.” He placed a hand over his heart. “I am excellent company.”

“Excellent might be a bit of a stretch; I was willing to give you tolerable.”

“I’ll take it.” He stood up to go. “Santa duty calls, see you at six Smoak.”

She hated that a smile spread across her face as she watched him walk off. She hated to admit it, but somehow the trust fund baby, human disaster, self-absorbed asshole was growing on her.

* * *

They were in the checkout lane at Target after several hours of shopping (and bickering like a married couple) when the older woman helping them asked, “Doing a little last minute shopping for the kids?”

“Yep,” Felicity answered, not thinking through what she actually meant with that question.

“How many do you have?”

Oliver gestured to the two more carts they had yet to begin unloading, “Thirty-two.”

An alarmed expression passed over the woman’s face before she peered curiously at her—sizing her up. It was then that she realized what she had assumed.

“Oh no, no, no. They’re not our kids. We’re not together,” she explained, horrified at the insinuation. “I’m a nurse at Starling Gen. The presents are for the patients in our children’s long term care wing.”

The cashier looked relieved and resumed scanning. Almost half an hour later, their presents were all bagged and Oliver handed over his credit card. 

She wondered what it would be like to be able to spend several thousand dollars at Target without batting an eye. 

“Oliver Queen…” The woman read off of his card. “Now why does that name sound familiar?” She tilted her head thoughtfully as she swiped it, “Have you dated one of my granddaughters?”

“For their sake, I hope not,” Felicity muttered under her breath, earning her a jab in the side.

“Oh! No, I know, I heard your name on the news the other week for… hmm now for the life of me I can’t remember.”

“Nothing important,” Oliver remarked hastily, signing his name and retrieving his card so they could get out of there before she remembered.

“Happy Holidays!” the woman called after them.

Out in the parking lot, as they were loading everything into the back of his truck, she posed the question, “I’m assuming you want help wrapping all of this?”

“Wrapping… didn’t think about that.”

Rolling her eyes, she sent him back into the store for gift wrapping supplies while she guarded the truck.

When he returned she suggested they grab some food to go and head over to her place since it was closer to the hospital than the Queen mansion. Also she was a little intimidated by the idea of going there.

“My apartment isn’t very big, it’ll be completely overrun by presents for a few days, but I don’t mind keeping them there until it’s time for delivery.”

“Okay.” Driving them to Big Belly Burger, he bought her dinner despite her insistence that just because she wasn’t a billionaire didn’t mean she couldn’t afford to eat.

“I’m pretty sure you buying me dinner qualifies this as a date,” was her final point in her argument.

He took her hand and teased, “You’ve given me thirty-two children my love, it’s about time I took you out on a date.”

Yanking her hand away, she glared at him and accepted her bag of food silently.

She navigated him to her apartment complex and she was relieved that they didn’t run into anyone on their multiple trips up to her place. The last thing she wanted was her neighbors gossiping about what she was doing with Oliver Queen.

After the last of the toys were carried upstairs, they settled onto her living room floor and began the long process of wrapping everything. They mostly worked in silence, occasionally talking about the patient that a certain present was going to. He wasn’t lying about his good memory, he remembered all sorts of little details about the kids he had visited. Every so often she stole a glance at him and she couldn’t help but admit that, out of his ridiculous Santa suit and in a navy blue sweater that made his eyes look really blue, she was a little bit attracted to him. Just a little bit.

It was after midnight when they finally finished and she flexed her fingers that were aching from cutting and taping.

“Next year, we’re going with gift bags,” Oliver muttered, lying in a pile of wrapping paper scraps and staring up at the ceiling. His use of “next year” surprised her and she waited for him to retract his statement. But he didn’t, instead he just eased himself up into a seated position and smiled at her, “Thanks for your help. I should get going now.”

“Yeah. I have to work an early shift tomorrow, so I need to scrap together as many hours of sleep as possible.”

Standing up, he helped her to her feet as well and she inhaled sharply at their close proximity. His eyes darted to her lips for a fraction of a second like he was considering kissing her and she hated how unopposed to that concept she was.

Just as she was starting to lean in ever so slightly, her phone started ringing and the moment was gone as he took a big step back from her.

“See you tomorrow,” he mouthed with a wave, slipping out the door as she answered her call.

Shaking off her disappointment, she greeted her caller, “Mom… it’s practically the middle of the night.”

_And I was just about to possibly get kissed._

“I was working a late shift, and you always work such weird hours I figured you’d still be awake. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“No, you didn’t. I was just about to get ready for bed.”

“Well I won’t keep you up for long, but I just have to tell you about what happened with Cindy’s granddaughter….”

She stifled a groan as her mom started sharing the latest gossip about her coworkers. This was definitely not worth missing out on whatever might have happened with Oliver for.

As she put her mom on speaker phone and went about removing her makeup and brushing her teeth she remembered that nothing was going to happen between them. Her overactive imagination had probably just concocted the tension between them she had felt before her phone rang. He had made it pretty clear from day one that he was hanging out with her because he wasn’t tempted to sleep with her and he needed to avoid getting into more trouble while he was trying to rectify his last incident.

And on day one that had been perfectly fine with her.

It wasn’t that now she wanted to hook up with him in a storage closet at the hospital, but she couldn’t deny that she wasn’t looking forward to when Christmas rolled around and he was absolved of his duties and she never saw him again because he would return to his world and wouldn’t step foot in hers again.

And even though she would  _never_  admit it aloud to him, she would miss him.

“You ready for this Smoak?” Oliver asked as they stood in the elevator.

“Yep.”

“I’m still a little disappointed that you wouldn’t dress up like an elf.”

“Shut up.”

They entered the first hallway of the long term care wing with a laundry cart piled full of presents and started slipping inside the rooms to drop the packages at the end of the kids’ beds.

All was going perfectly until they arrived in Theo’s room—where he was apparently still awake.

_“Santa?”_

They both froze and looked over at the bed where the little boy was watching them with wide eyes. His mom stirred on the cot next to him but kept sleeping.

_“Felicity?_ Are you a nurse  _and_  one of Santa’s elves?”

She held up a finger to her lips, “Shhhh…. our secret.”

He nodded in understanding and pressed a finger to his lips as well.

Setting his present by his bed, she winked before they exited his room.

Back out in the hallway, they heard the sound of approaching footsteps and she ushered him into a nearby closet to hide with their almost empty cart.

When they both realized the connotation of them being in a supplies closet, they simultaneously looked to each other.

“Don’t even think about it,” he remarked.

They were standing very, _very_ close together. Close enough for his fake beard to be tickling her.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re dressed up like Santa Claus; I literally could not be any less attracted to you right now.”

Cracking open the door, she saw that the coast was clear and slipped out with him on her heels.

“Are you insinuating that you would be into me if I wasn’t dressed like Santa?”

She ignored him— _ignored his correct assumption_ —and grabbed the next present to deliver.

Seconds after they had deposited the last present and were heading down the hallway to leave for the night, her pager went off and she slipped it out of her pocket.

“Oh!”

“What?” Oliver peered over her shoulder, trying to figure out what had caused her exclamation.

She bounced on her toes excitedly. “They have a heart for Amy, I have to go help prep her for surgery right now.” Turning to him, she added, “This surgery takes about four hours, you should go home.”

“What? No—“ he started to protest but she cut him off with a hand on his chest.

“There’s no point in you waiting around here. It already late and—“ She glanced at the clock that read 1:02am. “—technically already Christmas Day. Just go home, get some sleep, and then enjoy the holiday with your family.”

Brushing past him, she made a beeline for Amy’s room to wake her up and she was shortly joined by a slew of other nurses and doctors.

Squeezing the little girl’s hand comfortingly while the doctors took over with prepping her, she spoke softly to her.

“You’re going to get a new heart for Christmas.”

Amy smiled sleepily, “Santa found one for me. I knew he would.”

She returned her smile before helping to transfer her onto a gurney to take her to the OR. Out in the hallway she spotted Oliver still lingering and Amy caught sight of him too.

“Santa!” She waved at him. “They’re going to put my heart in now. Thank you!”

A smile spread across Oliver’s face and he waved back at her as they passed by.

* * *

A little over four hours later, Felicity assisted in returning Amy to her room. She was exhausted, her feet ached, and she couldn’t wait to collapse into bed the second she got home, but she was also filled with joy and relief that the surgery had proceeded without any major complications. It was going to be a few long months of recovery for the young girl, but in the end it would be worth it.

Downstairs she passed through the waiting room on her way out for the night—early morning at that point—and heard her name.

Pivoting on her heels, she saw Oliver approaching her—sans Santa suit and in a soft looking gray hoodie instead. He looked just as tired as she.

“I thought I told you to go home?”

“I did. But I came back. I couldn’t not know…”

“The surgery went well,” she assured him. “She has a lot of recovery time ahead of her but… she’s a fighter, I really think she’s going to be okay.”

Oliver sighed in relief and gathered her into his arms for a crushing hug that caught her by surprise. She was far too tired and his embrace felt too good to protest. Leaning into him, she wrapped her arms around his waist and nuzzled her face against his chest, confirming that his hoodie was indeed, very soft.

They stood there for a few seconds until they both fully realized what they were doing and stepped apart awkwardly—talking over each other about needing to get home, before parting ways.

It wasn’t until she got home that she realized that probably had been the last time she was going to be seeing him. Had the Oliver she had been sneaking through the halls with been the same Oliver she met on the first day, she wouldn’t bother to miss him. But underneath the persona he had gotten his reputation for, she had met someone she begrudgingly had to admit she really liked. And so she felt a pang of sadness that he wouldn’t be sitting down across from her at lunch anymore.

* * *

**3 DAYS AFTER CHRISTMAS**

“Hey Smoak.”

At the familiar voice, she looked up from the chart she was reviewing in surprise, “What are you doing here?”

There was a grin on his face as he answered, “Now that I’ve fulfilled my promise to my mom, I’m free to get in trouble with a hot nurse.”

“That’s  _so_  great. You have fun with that, ” she responded, her tone heavily laced with sarcasm. She started to walk away from him before he could notice the hurt on her face that she knew she was failing to hide, but his hand caught her elbow.

“Felicity.” Neutralizing her expression, she turned back to look at him and he continued, “I believe the nearest supplies closet is the other way.”

“Wha—“ Her eyes widened as what he was implying registered in her brain. “I—I’m the hot nurse?”

He winced, “I’m sorry, that sounded a lot less degrading in my head. The point is that you’re the only one here I would ever want to get into trouble with.”

Shaking her head in amusement, she grabbed his hand and promptly led him down the hallway to the closet. Once she had closed the door, she pushed him up against it and rolled up on her toes to kiss him. It was chaste and it was quick and he clearly wanted more, but she wasn’t going to give it to him, not yet. And certainly not in a supplies closet where anyone could walk in on them like they were on some soap opera.

When she pulled back, she bit her lip and looked up at him, fiddling with his coat, “I get off at seven. Meet me at my place. Bring food. I’m not picky.”

“Okay then.” He squeezed her shoulders affectionately, “It’s a date.”

“It’s a date,” she echoed, pressing one last kiss to his cheek before slipping out of the closet and hurrying off to see her first patient.

For the rest of the day she had to put Oliver out of her mind lest she get distracted and make a mistake. She checked on Amy and was pleased to see that she was starting to make progress on her recovery. Theo was in his first round of chemo and when she peeked her head into his room he was sleeping soundly with the stuffed dog she and Oliver had gotten him in lieu of a real puppy, tucked under his arm.

Finally, seven rolled around and she was able to head home. She took a quick shower, changing into clothes other than her scrubs, and was tossing her damp hair into a messy bun when he knocked on her door.

Swinging it open, she greeted him with a nervous, “Hey.”

She didn’t know why butterflies were taking flight in her stomach. Before, she had never felt nervous when they were hanging out together. She supposed it was the romantic connotations of this being a date that had her feeling a little off balance.

He smiled the kind of smile that made his dimples show as he responded with his own, “Hey.”

Ushering him inside, he sat the bag of takeout down on her coffee table before capturing her waist with his arm and pulling her to him to kiss her eagerly.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you all day,” he muttered against her lips, splaying his hands out across her back. “The kiss earlier…” He pressed a delicate kiss to her lips not unlike the one she had given him at the hospital. “…wasn’t enough.”

She opened up to him, letting him explore her mouth with his tongue before sucking on her bottom lip. He was an amazing kisser and she would have let him keep going if it wasn’t for the fact that her stomach started rumbling.

“I’m sorry.” She pulled back, her cheeks flushed and her heart racing. “I uhh… definitely want to do more of that, but dinner is going to have to come first. It was a busy day… I can’t remember if I ever stopped to eat anything.”

“You lost your lunch buddy and now you’re falling apart,” he teased, releasing her so she could take a seat on the couch.

While they eat the Italian takeout he had brought, he reached for one of her hands.

“Felicity, I have to thank you.”

She looked at him curiously, “For what?”

“For helping me have a change of heart. Meeting you… you made me want to be a better person. I was a self-centered jerk when I first stepped foot into that hospital and I don’t want to be that guy anymore.”

She set her food aside so that she could shift closer to him on the couch and place a hand over his heart.

“You’re not. A self-centered jerk would not have done what you did for those kids. You weren’t there Christmas morning when they all started to wake up but there was so much joy and excitement on their faces and  _you did that._ ”

He covered her hand with one of his own, “Couldn’t have done it without my elf.”

She rolled her eyes but couldn’t contain the smile that turned up the corners of her mouth.

Deciding that she had eaten an adequate amount of dinner, she straddled his lap and resumed their kissing from earlier while rolling her hips lazily against his—picking up the pace when he groaned and nipped at her bottom lip.

When he tilted his head to lavish her neck with open mouthed kissed, she ran her fingers through his hair and sighed, “My bedroom is the door to the left of the kitchen.”

At her invitation, he stood up abruptly in a very impressive maneuver that brought her up as well and she wrapped her legs securely around him so he could carry her into her room.

Settling her down on her mattress he hovered over her and she reached up to caress his stubble covered jaw.

“I hated that fake beard so much. It hid your face and you have a really nice face.”

“I think that’s the point of a costume.”

His eyes were glinting in amusement and she let out an exasperated huff, “Just shut up and kiss me.”

* * *

 


End file.
